


Liberation

by SithPriestess



Series: Desolation [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic
Genre: F/F, F/M, Mind Control, Sith, Sith Shenanigans, dark side, evil protagonists, the bad guys are really really bad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2018-10-14 11:39:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 61,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10535715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SithPriestess/pseuds/SithPriestess
Summary: "It isn't all terrible, serving our Lord. I fought it at first, with everything I had, but now I don't want to fight anymore. Obedience is easy, really most people prefer to follow orders and let someone make their decisions for them. Its the natural state of many sentient species, there's nothing wrong with that."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As always, a lot of trigger warnings. Rape, violence, generally Sith being Sith.

Here the streets were seedier, more unkempt, the citizenry dressed far more shabbily. The car descended to street level, passing by the homeless citizens and the working poor. A bedraggled cleaning droid, marked with graffiti and missing half its optic sensors, lurched about in front of the cab, forcing it to stop.

 

Iocina checked her location against a dimly lit sign, half its lights were out but the name of the street was correct and the global position was within a few feet.

She focused on the barely-there flicker of the Force inside her, demanding it to show her what she wanted to know. Just touching it, coaxing it, wouldn't work. She had to command it. Where is Bronus?

The barest of connections was there, a flash.

Bronus. There was dirt in her mouth.

Then the connection flitted away as her body wrestled with the drugs in her system.

She slipped out of the cab and began walking in the direction her sense of Bronus led her, eyes flicking from side to side and up. Not enough people looked up, particularly in cities where anything could drop from a roof or a window.

When she reached the building she walked past it, scanning the front and the side that faced an alley to pick out anyone guarding the building. She checked the other side of the street, and the buildings adjacent to it for watchers.

The average citizen, or even the average cop, would have noticed nothing. But Jedi, especially the Jedi trained before the wars, learned about stakeouts and security.

There were discreet hololens placed at regular places around the perimeter of the building, the sort that a professional team would put into place in a temporary refuge. A mouse droid located at the entrance of an alley seemed to be ambling about purposelessly, likely was a sentry.

There were three entrance/exits, all of which were likely easy to cover inside, and opportune for offering multiple routes of escape. The most likely exit would be through the large vehicle bay on the south side, through which a large air vehicle could fly out at a moment's notice, making an escape on the chance that the defenders were facing overwhelming force.

The entire setup and choice of location pointed to professionals, real professionals.

She attempted to cast out a Force net, to determine how many people were inside, and at what exits. She could manage the bottom floor, and a very small part of the second in the area closest to her. Experimentally she nudged some garbage next to her, shifting and lifting it with her mind. It was difficult, like the first exercises she'd practiced as a youngling. It would be enough, probably, to move cameras away from her and then back into place.

She moved around the side of the building, focusing all her attention for a moment on the little rolling droid. She lifted it, moving it over her head and setting it gently back down again facing away from her and gave it a little nudge toward the street.

The entrance here was her best bet, not only was it the least guarded but she could see crumpled cups and the remains of dozens of deathsticks and disposable injectors littering the area around it.

She pressed a hand against the door and pushed her mind inward, getting a vague impression of what was on the other side. She'd pay for this later, in pain and exhaustion. There was a reason younglings took things slowly and only for short periods of time, exercising these mental muscles was work.

There was a being, at the low ebb of boredom. Even professionals get bored. The sense of this mind was youth, likely a new initiate to the group given the simplest guard job as he earned his way up the rung.

She pressed her lips together and dragged her fingers gently down the locking mechanism. The electronics were good, probably better than anything Hivvis had taught her, but they'd been installed on an old door. The catch on the inside was a simple one. She wanted to smack whoever was supposed to have installed this lock, it was lazy to install a new keypad and not replace the inner tumblers. It took almost nothing to push gently and pull the durasteel door towards herself. She didn't even open the door all the way, just used the image in her mind to find the young being's signature. She aimed low, she needed to disable quickly before she could enter and kill him. The shot took him between the legs, and he started to scream as she rushed into the room and put another bolt into his forehead as she kicked the vibrosword from his hands. Here's to overconfident idiots.

She scooped up the sword and searched him for further weapons and key cards efficiently. She felt calm and focused, and had only a brief and vague thought that Padawan Denara would be crying as she did this, mourning another piece of her gone.

He carried an older blaster, a heavy model pistol that he likely chose more for show than any capacity for accuracy or utility. It was unwieldy in the hand and likely wouldn't be good beyond a dozen feet or so, but by the weight of the powerpack it would probably put down anything it did hit.

Assuming they weren't heavily armored, which would be a bad assumption to make, given the armor the young Twi'lek wore.

His comm began chattering, demanding to know what was going on.

Quiet was not going to be an option.

She jerked the Twi'lek's belt off and slung it around her waist. The blaster on one hip was heavy but she was happiest to have the vibro-sword. She slipped the little blaster back into her pocket and searched along her net to get a better heading on Bronus' direction. She stepped up to the right door and slapped the control to open it, then rolled to the side. A voice called out, probably the Twi'lek's name, and she used it to orient herself. She rolled to one knee, shot, and barely missed. She'd have to compensate for the badly calibrated sight.

The weequay snarled and lunged forward, swinging a sparking pike through the door, weaving a deadly fence in front of him. Another, unseen assailant fired covering bolts past him, a well-executed duet that they'd obviously used in the past.

Working with what little power she had, Iocina pressed down with the Force on the tip of his boot. His foot stuck to the floor just as he'd put all his weight into the lunge and he screamed as he went down, ankle snapping. She wished she could pick his body up and throw it into his companion, but wishing wouldn't get anything done. She pumped a shot into the back of the beings neck, severing his spinal cord.

On his belt he carried two stun grenades. Who the hell carries grenades around in a building they're guarding? she thought, entering somewhere, sure, but.. she flipped the little trigger and tossed it down the hall.

She heard a curse as the shooter dove away from the grenade. It detonated and there was silence.

She could feel more minds closing in. This was going to get very ugly, very soon.

Bronus. She could also sense Bronus, alert now, and attempting to distract her captors somehow.

Iocina stopped trying to think, she gripped what small amount of power she could touch and moved. Sith, Ullan had said, did not follow the will of the Force, they controlled it. She thought for now that she was doing a little of both.

The hallway was a blur as she switched the blaster to her left hand and drew the vibro-sword. She didn't quite remember how many she'd killed, only that she'd made a very big mess all over the pristine hallway, and painted the walls of two rooms. She had to maim most of them before she could kill them, their body armor protected their torsos and the outsides of their thighs and arms. The underside of arms, the insides of thighs, where shoulder met arm - all vulnerable places. Only a few of them were wearing helmets of any kind and attacking the head and neck of all humanoid species was a quick way to kill if you were a good shot, or could swing a sword with enough strength to sever a spine or split a skull.

She was painted in blood, not all of it from her foes, when she finally found Bronus.

The slave was laying in a dusty pile of trash, hands and feet bound. She'd been yelling, trying to distract the bounty hunters, when they'd finally clubbed her into silence. She lay, bruised and bleeding herself, when Iocina killed the last guard.

She smiled at Iocina through a mouthful of broken teeth and spat once.

"You look like hell," she said, bending to take up a smallish knife protruding from the boot-top of a nameless body. There was a short link of chain between each set of of manacles, which would make it easy to break for someone who wasn't actually locked into them. She shoved the blade into the gap of the central link and used a gore splattered helmet to hammer down until it broke.

"Can you walk? If you can't speak, just nod. Or hell, think hard at me. Its got to be hard because I can barely use the Force right now."

Bronus simply nodded and reached for a hand up.

Insects and vermin were already descending on the ready-made meals Iocina had created in the hallways and abandoned working rooms of the facility, flitting about the exposed entrails and bloody remains. A one-eyed woman stared up accusingly at her, the other half of her face sizzled away by a blaster bolt.

As they made their way to the exit, spotlights suddenly lit up, shining through the windows.

"Attention anyone inside there: this is Republic Intelligence, we are coming in. Do not attempt to resist and you will not be harmed."

For a moment she actually considered stripping naked and pretending they were both slaves, and helpless, but Ullan's bounty had her face attached as a bonus it captured.

"Damn," she muttered, "there has to be a way out of this."

She examined the map she'd built in her mind, coming up with one door she'd not opened. From the size of it, tucked between two larger rooms, it could have been a closet, but there were no other random storage rooms that she'd seen here.

The slipped up the stairs towards the little door, ducking under windows to avoid being seen. Below she could hear someone working on the lock to the front gate, and they didn't have a lot of time.

She fired a shot into the panel beside the door and was gratified when it opened. They were more than lucky, this wasn't an exit, but she could use it to make an exit. It was an armory, and there were several boxes full of mines and small explosives. She motioned for Bronus to go to the end of the hallway. As quickly as possible she sprinted to the stairs and began to lay mines in the path of the incoming soldiers, then left a trail of them down the hallway.

She ended by grabbing Bronus around the waist and placing one against the wall. This was the wall that faced the back of the building, facing a very narrow alley. Narrow enough that jumping down from the second floor into it would be tricky, but also too narrow for anyone in armor to get into it.

Using the barest whisper of power, nearly all the energy she had left, she activated the mine to blow a chunk in the wall large enough for a Wookie to step through. It was more than enough for Bronus and Iocina.

"I'm going to jump down, come down after me and I'll catch you," she promised, knowing that she probably couldn't take all of her weight. Bronus was already hurt, but she might get hurt a bit worse if Iocina couldn't manage to soften her fall. She was just too weary to try and slow her fall with the Force, and doubtless didn't have enough connection to it to manage it either.

Carefully she dropped down to the alley, listening to the panicked shouts from below in the wake of the explosion and the sound of the gate being blasted open. Apparently that had been enough for them to stop trying to slice the lock and detonate it instead.

Bronus followed her without hesitation, leaping when Iocina held up her arms.

The impact was brutal and she felt something give way, but she kept Bronus from crashing full-weight into the ground.

Now they were afoot, in a foreign city, with Republic intelligence hot on their heels. Aircars flitted around the block, the strongest likelihood was that the Republic troops knew exactly who they were dealing with here. Or at least thought they did. 

"Now we just have to get near to the spaceport," she whispered, mouth pressed to Bronus' ear, "And hope we get a pickup, without the Force there's no way to walk openly through that much brightly lit open space without getting caught."

At the moment, distance was as important as direction, so Iocina pulled Bronus after her in a random direction, slipping into a yet another back alley. She pulled out the small blaster and handed it to Bronus, "Don't use it unless you have to," she said.

Once they'd gotten far enough away to stop hearing sirens they began to hear explosions. They'd found the mines, goody.

Bronus murmured something, her mouth so wrecked that it came out as something unintelligible.

::Are you having a pleasant time, slave?::

Not really, no. Or at least I'm not right now, the other part... that was fun, she tried to show him how she'd felt, in the midst of the violence. Excited, unafraid, reveling in the feel of blood on her skin for the first time, the amazing feeling of destroying so much.

::Any idea which way we should head, or a place we can wait for a pickup of some kind? She's beat all to hell and I'm covered in, well, viscera.::

::Ah yes. It's a very good thing that they have the wrong image of me in their files, funny thing how bureaucracies work. There'll be a cab waiting for you at the corner of pylon 17 in... three minutes. It's a bit of a jog, but I'm sure you'll make it. If not, the sweep pattern indicates they'll be there in four, so you'd best hurry.::

Thank you Master, there wasn't even any sarcasm in her mental voice, he'd never make it easy on her and she didn't expect him to.

She had to practically carry Bronus through the streets, barely avoiding not only a patrol looking for them - or at least whoever had caused all the destruction, she wasn't sure if they'd gotten hold of the security holos from inside the building yet - but also a slum roving gang.

The cab was waiting with its door open and she could see a drunk weaving his way toward it. She shoved Bronus into the back and climbed in afterward.

She looked at Bronus and starting giggling madly, "I'm sorry, that’s not the appropriate response to all that, but wow."

Getting hold of herself she looked at the slave critically, taking note of visible injuries. She wanted to get her into the ship and on that medical table as soon as possible.

The cab whirred away. Security forces flitted by, but suddenly something new happened.

On the horizon, a massive explosion was rocking the entertainment district. Suddenly, the holoscreen in the cab lit up.

A hooded figure appeared on the screen. A hood they knew quite well, from having folded that exact cloak and put it away during the course of their duties.

A sinister, gravelly voice emerged, the same as had confronted an innocent padawan a lifetime ago.

"Citizens of Kradle City, I am Darth Ullan. You think you are safe here, far from the front lines, far away from the war. That is why I am here, and why all the Republic should know: no planet is safe from the forces of the Sith Fleet and Lord Malak. There is no safety but surrender. We will take your bright lights and high towers and grind them into dust, we will take your mighty and powerful and burn them to cinders. We will lap at the well of your fear and suffering, until all bow before the reborn Sith Empire."

::What do you think? Too cerebral? Remind me, we need to find a Mandalorian, I need a new mask.::

Iocina bit her lip, fighting not to burst into laughter again. Beside her Bronus' eyes had crinkled up.

"Well, that'll distract them from following us," Iocina said, "They probably think he did it anyway. From a certain point of view, he did, through me."

I liked it, intimidating. I think you struck just the right note. I'd love to hear all the details once you get back to the ship please. I've been a good girl after all.

Iocina settled back and thought of tugging Bronus into her lap, she set the impulse aside. She couldn't be sure she didn't have internal injuries that were barely holding together. She spent half the trip to the ship looking out the window, making another mental map of how to get from the slums to the best part of the spaceport in case they came back. She spent the other half watching things burn on the screen.

::Get Bronus on the med table, I've got to collect something on the way back.::

The cab grounded near the ship, right in front of the ramp.

She half carried the taller woman, taking most of her weight on her shoulder, and went straight to the cubby containing the medical supplies. She flipped the catches and lifted Bronus onto the table.

Iocina could hear frantic shouting from Alianne in the cargo hold, doubtless because of the violent explosions she'd heard. "Shut it!" she shouted back and was rewarded with momentary silence.

"Scoot down a bit," Iocina instructed, helping the slave to shift herself to a position beneath the scanner. It unfolded the opposite direction from the table and hovered over it.

"You really are a mess aren't you?" she muttered as she got to work, carefully cutting off what was remaining of Bronus' clothing to get better access to her wounds. She started with the woman's head, pulling a small glow light out and shining it in her eyes. Both pupils looked good, both the same size and she was mostly alert. She began gently feeling her scalp for fractures, finding only shallow cuts that she could ignore.

She had a fractured cheekbone and damaged teeth, which she wasn't sure what to do about yet, and every inch of her was covered in bruises. This was going to take awhile...

The machinery hummed to life, processing and delivering recommendations and attaching instruments. A cabinet of kolto patches lay open and ready for use.

Sudden steps came pounding up the steps. Ullan slapped the hatch control, bringing the ramp up behind him, then dumped a short, unconscious woman on the deck. "Rented us a doctor," he said.

The woman was clad in surgical utilities and completely out of it, short, dark-haired, and buxom. He'd obviously been a bit picky about which doctor he abducted.

"She'll be unconscious long enough for us to get away. Get down to the quad gun and cover us on the way out, things are going to get hot."

She shifted the woman out of the way, putting her beneath the table, then used the same sort of straps that had kept her locked in a bunk on Hivvis’ ship to secure Bronus.

"I'll be back," she said, already moving, and quickly dropped down into the gun well. This was so much superior to the one on the Maiden that she wanted to have a better look at it when they were away. The controls were more modern, and the weapons were high end and illegally modified. She engaged the targeting reticule and watched as dozens of signatures appeared on the screen. Nearly every civilian ship that had been in orbit, on approach, or already leaving was in chaos. Apparently either her Master's holomessage had reached the ships, or they'd all gotten an emergency comm from a control tower, because everyone was trying to flee the system at the same time.

He threw the drives to full power, blasting away from the starport. If anything gets in our path, shoot it down. And for that matter, take a few random shots at anything that looks promising. We're engaging in terrorism, after all.

She felt a somewhat manic grin split her face, spinning in the seat to search for hostile targets as well as interesting ones. Nothing was actually targeting them according to the scope but there were a few ships in the way, one of them just happening to be a Republic courier ship. Not a cruiser, and not even heavily armed, she aimed for the sublight engines and fired. The ship bucked, tilting just enough as it began to fail for them to pass. They'd probably be able to get the thing under control before any more damage was done, if they worked hard enough at it.

Immediately she moved onto the other ship that might end up in their path, a clumsy freighter that had actually noticed them and was trying to get out of the way. A burst of green laser fire took out the cockpit and the whole thing disintegrated into pieces, I think they should have worked on those shields, Master, a little asteroid would have done almost as much damage.

As soon as they'd cleared most of the rabble she spun the gun to the rear and started taking random potshots, more to create a sense of terror than to do the most damage she could.

He suddenly put the ship in a hard bank, taking it over the top of a large freighter.

::Aim for the motor linkages and enjoy.::

Her shots flew true, smashing the linkages and creating a sympathetic detonation in the engines. The ship turned sharply, heeling over on its side.

When it collided with a rising starliner, the massive vessel coming up from beneath actually pushing the freighter back up. However, the weight of the freighter was not to be denied, and as its nose slid along the dorsal surface of the starliner, it smashed into the base of the vessel's bridge, tearing it away. The two ships fell apart from each other, raining down toward the starport below.

She could've sworn she saw the bridge strike a small yacht and obliterate it, but perhaps that was wishful thinking.

::See, this is how it's done. Think about how many resources they're going to suck up to make sure that no Sith and his halfwit apprentice ever sneak in here and stir the pot again.::

::I wonder if they managed to get any of the security holos from the building I blew up, it really depends if it was recorded and had copies sent to another location at regular intervals and whether a copy was sent when I was in there. I guess if the capture order for me changes we'll know.:: 

She scanned the area for more targets but hadn't decided on one before they were nearing a good point to make a jump, ::I'm sort of hoping none of it got out, I'd like to be able to screw with at least one Jedi who thinks they can rescue me. If they know I've slaughtered a bunch of people that limits my options some.::

He slammed the ship into hyperspace, then sauntered back to the medbay, discarding his cloak on the floor as he did.

::Are you through toying with the new slave for the moment? We need some housekeeping in here.::

He stood over Bronus, running fingers through her filthy, matted hair.

::I'll let her out of her little box and put her to work,:: she didn't bother to keep a slightly smug tone out of her mind voice.

She trotted down the corridor and up to the force cage, "I'd love to have time to ask you what you've been thinking in that devious head of yours but Master needs you to clean up," she said, using the toe of her boot to turn off the force field.

Iocina remembered, as Alianne lifted her head and then stared with frightened eyes at her, that she was covered in blood, small cuts, and blaster burns.

"Yes mistress," she said, scrambling to her feet. She dashed down the hall to collect the good cloak.

"Get back in here worm," Ullan growled. "The doctor will need assistance when she wakes up. Plus an understanding of her new role."

"We keeping her permanently?" she asked, opening the door to the adjacent fresher and beginning to wash her hands and arms with sanitizer.

She nudged the woman slightly with one toe as she dried her hands, and was gratified when she began to stir.

"Wasn't intending to, but if she amuses me, maybe."

He punched the wall suddenly. "That did not go anything like planned."

"Can we salvage whatever went wrong?" she asked, as she frowned down at Bronus and went back for the whole container of cleansing wipes in the 'fresher, then began to carefully clean her off. It was hard to tell beneath the dirt from the trash she'd lain in exactly how bad off she was, and if she had wounds under the dirt they had to be scrubbed out.

"Already did. I was going to kill those fools and burn the Sylla identity anyway. Republic Intelligence was bound to catch onto the discrepancy soon, so I made contingency plans. Their major holdings are already in liquidation and the credits are flowing in."

He poured himself a tumbler of brandy as she worked. "We don't have a lot of formal budgeting, we're expected to make do. Bronus was busy insuring the groundwork was laid. I'm not sure how she got made by RepInt, but I'll still get enough out of it. In fact, I'm wealthy enough to buy a moon or three now, or even a decent frigate. Retirement money, if I desired."

He waved a hand at the doctor, who gave a shocked gasp.

"Quit pretending, woman. I know you're awake."

She sat up slowly. "Please don't hurt me."

"Wrong thing to ask me," he chuckled. "But I have work for you right now. Fix my slave. Full reconstruction. I don't want a mark on her when you're done."

Iocina smiled sweetly, "And I'll be your assistant. I've had some medic training so I know my way around, and whatever I don't know I'll learn quick enough."

She reached down to grab the woman, gently, by the wrist. She didn't want to damage her hands or arms, just get her off the floor and moving. She looked down at herself, as the woman flicked her eyes over her. She'd cleaned most of the blood from herself but the dress was a loss. She stepped back and began to strip out of it, throwing at Alianne as she passed.

She grabbed another wipe and cleaned her face and fingers where they'd touched the bloody cloth.

"Where do we start?"

"Stars," she said "how did this happen? Never mind, doesn't matter." She glanced over her shoulder at Ullan, then got to work. "Stabilize. You get to work on the leg fractures, get that tibia straightened and grafting. Forget the fibula. I've got the pelvis, while the cerebrostimulator handles the cranial trauma."

She moved to do as she was told, focusing on getting everything right. The last time she'd played medic it had been for her Master, but before that she'd spent a lot of time with 3C in the medical wing of the temple. Particularly when she wanted to get out from under Vrook's thumb, it had been a good way to both learn something and he'd never even think to drag her away from helping people to perform even more pointless meditations.

Bronus was remarkably calm, but then she had been during the escape as well. She was a much better patient than many she'd worked on, didn't try to fight anything that was done to her no matter how painful or uncomfortable it was.

Bronus kept her eyes fixed on Ullan, apparently deep in conversation with her.

He stepped up suddenly, catching the doctor's hand as she lifted an injector to put Bronus under.  
"I need her conscious," he said mildly.

"That's sick! This woman is suffering! You let me put her under or get another doctor."

He lifted a single finger and a necklace slid from under the doctor's shirt. "You're foolishly brave, doctor, but you don't fully understand your circumstances. I am a Lord of the Sith. I spend my days engaging in grotesque tortures of innocent individuals such as yourself. Under other circumstances I would leave my slave broken like this and think nothing of it. "

He reached out to rest his hand on Bronus' forehead as the necklace began winding itself tighter around the doctor's neck. "And that's what I do to my property. Imagine what I would do to somebody who has no use to me at all?"

Iocina smiled slightly as she worked, not daring to steal a glance at what her Master was doing with the little doctor. Bronus was tough, and she could handle this.

I don't think she sees how strong Bronus is, its like you said about people underestimating beautiful women. Bronus jumped two stories and ran with me several blocks with only a little help, she wished she had anything left to touch the Force with, but her head was pounding miserably, it was an effort just to try and project words. It would be easier if she could sense if she was setting the bones right, or whether there was a splinter loose under the skin.

She's a worthwhile slave, he agreed.

"So do we understand each other, or do I channel my rapidly swelling boredom into carving arcane symbols into your flesh," Ullan asked the doctor in a pleasant voice.

"I'll do it," she said. "You're a monster!"

She screamed as a single spark of lighting shot into her open mouth to singe her tongue.

"Please be more creative in the future with your insults," he said. "That one is very trite. Now get to work, insect."

She turned, one hand on her mouth as she threw the injector violently to the floor and resumed working.

It was a bit of a struggle for Iocina to keep a straight face as she listened to the next set of instructions. She became rather impressed with the doctor; even though she afraid and under a great amount of stress her hands were perfectly steady.

She kept a very small amount of attention for Alianne as she scuttled around cleaning the blood from the floor and disposing of the packaging and bloody gauze and cleansing wipes. She didn't think she would dare to try anything under her Master's eye, but she might be feeling rebellious.

She distinctly saw Alianne smile broadly when the doctor literally ate the spark, but otherwise the slave kept out from underfoot and efficiently cleaned the medical refuse away.

"Okay," the doctor said. "The bed has finished stabilizing the abdomen. Fortunately she doesn't need a spleen," she glanced over at Ullan "are you going to have a new one grown?"

"She doesn't need it? No."

"Okay," the doctor said "now we move on to the facial trauma, and there's a lot of that. We're going to need to set the regenerator to growing the teeth. That's going to be horrifically painful, which apparently is the rule around here."

She deliberately kept her voice light as she focused on her work, but the words quavered at the last.

The doctors words made Iocina's impassive mask slip just enough for a small smirk to quirk her lips, "You have no idea," she murmured, "but if you stick around you'll just have to get used to it."

Iocina set up the regen for the doctor but had to let her program it to do the actual work. She knew how to pull the thing out and get it ready, but not how it worked.

"Now what do need me to do?" she asked, stepping back to give the woman room.

"Sit in that chair over there so I can get to work on your wounds afterward," she said as she strapped the unit into place. "This one, does she have a name?"

"'Slave' will suffice," Ullan said.

"And that one is 'other slave'," she said, pointing at Alianne.

"'New slave', actually," Ullan said.

"Creative. Anyway, 'Slave' here will be down for at least twenty hours while this rebuilds her face. Then I'll need to go in and do surface repairs to remove the scarring."

"Doctor," he said softly "hold out your hand."

She turned toward him and did so, hesitantly. He grasped it in his metal hand, the cybernetic flexing smoothly to grasp her gently.

"You are a woman who is ued to being in command of her environment," he said. "With pride in your accomplishments and the need to be in control."

A sudden jolt sent her to her knees with a scream.

"You are not in control here."

Another shock made her spasm, her body starting to go limp as he held her upright.

"Your accomplishments only have meaning so long as they serve me."

A final shock and he let her slump to the floor. He nudged her face upward with his boot so he could look down into her eyes.

"Further displays of attitude and I will become irritated and have to seriously harm you."

She gurgled incoherently and he nudged her again.

"The proper response to a command from your owner is 'Yes master' or 'Yes my lord.'"

She whispered something and he nudged her again. "I cannot hear you down there."

"Yes my lord."

"Better. Now fix my worm. Leave the scars on her."

Iocina sank into the chair, the cold surface felt good against her hot skin but the sweat down her back cooled immediately and made the chair slick.

She was still liberally spattered with blood, having only needed clean hands to work.

"Thank you my Lord," she said, I was going to ask you first if she should even tend my wounds.

He sat down in another chair and beckoned to Alianne, who crawled forward and curled up around his leg.

The doctor pulled herself slowly to her feet, her joints obviously stiffened up after the electrical abuse she'd just received. She hobbled over to Iocina, an imploring look in her eyes.

She smiled at her, it didn't hurt any to show her a kind face. Either she'd disabuse her of the notion eventually, or she'd be good corsec to her master's bad corsec for awhile.

"Its alright, I earned these scars," she didn't give a further explanation, blaster burns and the light stroke of a lightsaber were superficially the same, and the doctor could decide whether Iocina was as abused as Alianne obviously seemed to be.

"I'm sure you did," she said cautiously. "Am I allowed to call you by name? Can I put any analgesics down to dull the pain?"

"No," Ullan said. "Of course not. And you will address her as 'Worm'."

"Yes my lord," she said as she knelt by Iocina and began cleaning her off.

"Don't worry too much about my pain," she said, "I've had much worse."

She was in pain, but she'd always had a little better than average pain endurance. The last three weeks had improved that greatly. The burns were worse than any of the cuts and scrapes, but besides on that was much deeper than the others they weren't much worse than what she'd get from a training 'saber.

"Well I'm sorry anyway," she said. "My name is-"

"Irrelevant," Ullan said. "You only get a name if I give you one."

Her eyes narrowed, some spirit returning. She muttered. "Yes, my lord."

On the floor Alianne's eyes narrowed, Why isn't she getting called slave, she thought, though Worm doesn't sound much better. She wished Iocina was flinching as her wounds were scrubbed out with disinfectant, she wanted to see her in pain again.

Iocina shifted to half turn in the chair to give the doctor access to a deep gash in her side just over her ribs, the new scab breaking open to bleed fresh under the doctor's ministrations.

"I'm going to have to remove the scab," she said. "Aerate the wound."

::Pay attention to context,:: he thought to Alianne. ::There is something very different about my little worm, which you should have figured out by now. Now the other two, those you'll get to play with.::

Alianne watched Iocina with calculation, as the other woman nodded to the doctor. She was completely relaxed, and even had a small smile on her face. She was also looking down at top of the pretty doctor's head as though she was clever pet who was learning a new trick.

Master had called her his slave, had used her as a footstool and hurt her far worse than he'd done to herself. What is she, Alianne thought, a slave but not a slave.

Her gaze flicked to the heavy belt with its holstered blaster and vibrosword, and remembered that Iocina had been wearing it over the blood soaked dress when she'd released her from the cage. She'd been hoping all that blood was Iocina's...

The doctor had gone very quiet as she'd worked on the gash, knowing it would leave a deep scar indeed. She couldn't help but notice the traces of nonhuman blood dried on 'Worm's' skin and had to take several deep breaths. What had this woman done? She couldn't be more than twenty, but she had old eyes. How long had the Sith had her, or the other two? She was too young to have been in the Mandalorian war, and she didn't have anything like the sinister aura the Sith Lord had. She shook herself out of her thoughts as she finished her work and sat back on her heels.

"Slave, bring food for myself and the worm. Doctor, crawl over here." He pointed at his feet. "Sit there on your heels."

Alianne got up and walked directly in the doctor's path, making her dodge around as she proceeded on to the galley.

He looked down at the doctor, staring her down until she looked away. "Forget your life," he said calmly. "Forget your world. Forget everyone you've known, because you won't ever see them again. Do you understand?"

Stripped of the work that had allowed her to focus on something besides her predicament, the doctor shivered. "Please. I've done what you wanted. You don't need me anymore."

He twisted his hand and she grabbed between her legs, a wordless cry of pain erupting from her.

"You know the protocol to address me with, insect. Do not make me remind you again. "

"Yes master!"

"You belong to me now. Your life, your death, your services and your skills. As you might expect, severe and life-threatening injuries are somewhat routine around here."

Suddenly her top whipped off, leaving her in a flimsy undergarment. "As you might expect, I didn't just select you for your medical skills."

She moved to cover herself with her hands; a gesture of the Force pulled them away.

"I own this body now," he said. Her breath came in ragged whimpering gasps as he reached out to lift one of her breasts. "You do not get to deny it to me."

He looked up at Iocina. "What do you think? Worth keeping?"

"I like her Master," she said, standing and flexing her muscles. She was still sore and her head felt like it wanted to split open. She was rather impressed with herself with what she'd accomplished with so little power available to her, but she was feeling the toll now. She was also ravenous.

"She's got a cool head," she added, "at least she does when she has something to concentrate on."

Alianne fumed as she pressed buttons on the synthesizer. She was pleased that Master had trusted her to make a meal for him even after her failure this morning, but she wanted to scream at having to give the same food to the... the not slave, the worm, whatever she was.

She rubbed her forhead against the chilled side of the cooler. Context, she thought, what do I know? Iocina had been beneath Master's feet when she'd asked her to take her with them. She'd been wearing what amounted to a torture device, but had seemed to enjoy it more than she'd been in pain. she turned the facts over in her head, Her failure had involved being captured by the Jedi, hadn't it? They're enemies of the Sith, she began to arrange the food elegantly on the dishes, not daring to make one of them even slightly inferior, Hmm, wait. Iocina had said she was supposed to kill someone she cared about, and had spoken of a previous master who'd treated her like family.

Her hands shook slightly as she carried the plates back out to her Master, Iocina is a Jedi.

He gave Alianne a knowing look and a small nod as she came in.

He accepted a plate from Alianne and gestured to the doctor. "You'll tame her and be responsible for her. If you want to be a Sith, you need to learn how to break an unwilling slave. Just make sure she stays usable."

He gestured to Alianne after she took Iocina her meal, then extended his legs. She lowered herself down and provided her back for him to rest his feet on.

Iocina smirked down at her plate, her Master had said he might let her squash Alianne's idiotic dream of becoming his apprentice and controlling the Force.

She ate her meal slowly, savoring each bite. She'd had to be careful her first day on the Errant Night and eat plain and bland food. She was mindful of what C-3 had said about getting sick. Really, this was the first real appetizing meal she'd had since leaving the enclave to hunt for Yuld.

"Master, do you still have that holocron?" she asked between bites. She caught Alianne scowling at her and offered the doctor a bite from her fork. The woman looked at it resentfully but opened her mouth when Iocina nudged between her legs with her boot. Her face was crimson with humiliation, and a little amused thrill went through her.

"That was nice," she complemented quietly.

"I do. It's fading fast. You should say goodbye while you have the time."

He tossed tidbits down to the floor for Alianne, who carefully ducked her head to snatch them up.

"So how many did you kill in there?" he asked.

"If you don't mind I'd like to, Master. Not so much a fond farewell or anything but we have unfinished business," she said, "as for your question, honestly, I'm not sure," she said, "After the first three or four I just... went into this headspace where I was moving without thinking. Nothing mattered but making them all dead. I saw a whole lot of bodies on the way back out, but I was in too much of a hurry to avoid RepInt to get a good count. I'll have to meditate on it, once the block wears off. Whenever you decide that will be of course."

She took another few bites and offered another to the doctor. She gave Alianne glance and moved her eyes back to her Master, ::The kinder I am to the good doctor here, the more Alianne with want to hurt her. Once she's good and broken she'll come crawling to me to protect her from the little monster and swear fealty like a good slave. You might want to mention that her hands shouldn't be damaged, or she'll be useless.::

::Good thinking, on both counts. I'll make sure she knows. One of the first steps to becoming a Sith should be the breaking of another being to service your desires. Be imaginative with the little doctor. Find out what she treasures, then pervert her against it.::

He looked Iocina in the eye across the room. ::Much as I did with you.::

She met his eyes steadily, ::I know.::

::And how do you feel now, that you've finally unleashed even a stunted sliver of your true ability?::

She thought for a long moment, placing her plate on the floor next to the doctor and keeping the fork to play with as she nudged her toward the food.

::Free, she said, ::I feel like myself, like who I could have been if the Jedi hadn't indoctrinated me into repressing everything all the time.::

::We have our own mantra, you know. I don't entirely agree with it, but it does generally suit.::

He opened his mouth, speaking the words aloud.

"Peace is a lie, there is only passion.  
Through passion, I gain strength.  
Through strength, I gain power.  
Through power, I gain victory.  
Through victory, my chains are broken.  
The Force shall free me."

He took a drink of brandy. "You can guess which portion I dislike."

She nodded, tapping the handle of the fork against her bottom lip, she would meditate on that too, when she had the chance. Her eyes looked past him for a long moment and she noticed the vials of neuro-block that were still lined up beside his chair. She rubbed the inside of her wrist where the little pinprick mark from where she'd injected herself four days ago had faded.

"May I get cleaned up, Master?" she motioned vaguely to the parts of her naked form that were still a bit bloody, and she knew she was streaked with sweat.

"Take your new pet with you," he said, gesturing at the doctor. "I'll allow my little slave to entertain me."

Alianne smiled up at him, the picture of docile compliance.

She raised an eyebrow, "Can I use the one in your room, Master?" she asked as she hooked the doctor under the elbow and pulled her to her feet, "Or just use the sonic?"

"Have the doctor give you a proper shower," he said. "You earned it tonight."

She smiled and began to tug the doctor along with her, "Thank you, Master," she put her boot down hard next to Alianne's hand, just barely missing it.

"This way," she said, turning to smile at the other woman. They were nearly the same height which was nice, usually everyone seemed to tower over her. The doctor was white, and her eyes were wild with shock. Iocina pulled her into the room and gave her cheek a very light slap.

"Thank you ever so much for patching me up," she said sweetly, "now take off my shoes and then remove your clothes. If you don't take them all off I'll have to do it for you."

"Yes, ah, what do I call you?" she said as she squatted down to remove Iocina's shoes.

"I'm going to assume he would like you to call me what Bronus, the woman you healed, calls me. Mistress Worm will work for now. Just like you need to earn a name, I need to earn a better one," she stepped out of the shoes and sighed. They'd fit but it was odd to realize she hadn't worn real shoes in awhile and her feet hurt.

She ran a finger down the front of the woman's undershirt, "Off," she said, "Did you have a lover? Husband, wife?"

Anger and pain flashed in her eyes. "Not anymore. 'Forget everyone you've known, because you won't see them ever again,'" she quoted bitterly.

"Hold onto that anger," she said, "You're going to need it," She reached out and began gently tugging the other woman's clothes off of her. That feeling she'd had when Bronus' chin was in her hands came back to her, 'I'll break your jaw', she'd said then.

Iocina wasn't like Ullan, she enjoyed pain and fear now but it was a different sort of fear she craved. She wanted this woman to like her, to see her as a comforting rock in a storm of pain and grief. She'd come to her, crying, and Iocina would soothe her. Then she finally broke her and the woman would thank her for it. She wanted this woman to worship her in the same way Alianne worshiped Ullan. Alianne would have a run for her money in her attempt to tame and break the doctor, because everything she did would push this woman into Iocina's arms. When all this was over, the doctor would be happy to kill for her - to murder anyone Iocina asked her to just to receive her praise and feel her hands on her body.

"Here little healer, let's both get in the shower," she said, hooking her thumbs into the waistband of the woman's trousers.

The doctor shivered and froze in place, allowing Iocina to pull her trousers off. Underneath was plain, pedestrian underwear.

"My name is Zyro," she said, with a distinct emphasis to make the word sound more like 'Sear-o' than 'Zero'.

"Its a nice name," she said, a smile dancing in her eyes, "when this is all over I'll maybe give it back to you. For now I'm going to call you my little slave," Iocina dropped a light kiss on the woman's shoulder as she began to remove her underthings.

"You're going to give me a bath little slave, and then I'm going to thank you for healing Bronus. I got all those wounds defending her, and I'd hate to have all that go to waste," she wrapped an arm around Zyro's shoulders and led her into the shower.

When the water was just this side of scalding she stepped in and pulled the woman after her and picked up the bottle of smoke scented soap. "Here, wash my hair first little slave," Iocina wanted her to get used to being called a slave, to begin to think of herself that way, it would make things easier.

Slowly, hesitantly she began to work the soap into Iocina's hair. Her hands were strong, dexterous, and she soon had begun to gently sort the worst of the tangles.

As she worked, she began to sob quietly, still focused on her work.

The fingers massaging her scalp eased her headache the tiniest bit. Zyro was a strong compassionate person, Alianne's perfect opposite. She was going to twist her into something that would love to hurt other people, but it would take time.

"Shh, its all right," she whispered conspiritorially, "you're doing much better than I did. I was a mess," she put a soft plaint in her voice, leaning her head back into Zyro's hands.

"I can teach you how things work here, Alianne will help too. She's been a slave for years but I've only been here three weeks. You just need to be a fast learner as I was."

"Three weeks?" she asked incredulously. "What were you before... before our master took you?"

She began working the soap against Iocina's skin, sponging away the grime and gore. The floor of the shower ran scarlet with the fluids of dead bounty hunters.

Iocina closed her eyes with a groan of pleasure, leaning against the wall as Zyro moved to the front of her. She smirked as she could feel her very quickly trying to wash her breasts to move on to the rest.

She brought a hand up and gripped her slave's wrist, "Keep touching me there," she said, "your other hand can continue washing me,"

Iocina could see her throat work as she swallowed, "That's good. I was a Jedi Padawan actually, that's an apprentice if you don't know anything about it. Have you ever met a Jedi before?"

"No," she said. "We've all heard about them, though. Them and this war. We were supposed to be safe."

Her touch went from firm and confident at the familiar task to hesitant, unsure. She cleaned Iocina's body with one hand, the other stroking uncertainly at Iocina's breast. "What's going to happen to me?" she asked. "Is this it? All I'm going to be? A slave who occasionally heals your wounds?"

"Is that all you want your life to mean here?" she asked, stepping closer until Zyro's back pressed against the black tiles, "I could make something of you, you just have to let me."

Zyro's hands were trapped between their bodies and Iocina stroked the side of her face, there were still tears running down and mixing with the shower spray. Iocina leaned in and ran her tongue beneath the new slave's lashes.

"It isn't all terrible, serving our Lord. I fought it at first, with everything I had, but now I don't want to fight anymore. Obedience is easy, really most people prefer to follow orders and let someone make their decisions for them. Its the natural state of many sentient species, there's nothing wrong with that."

"That's not me," she whispered, squirming gently.

Despite her words, Iocina felt Zyro's nipples hardening against her, her body responding to the proximity.

She felt Ullan slipping into her mind, drinking up her sensations. ::Such a shame you can't bring this to fruition, hmm?::

::Its worth it Master. What do you think of her? I think she's spent her whole life serving others in one way or another, she wouldn't have become a doctor otherwise. I can't read her mind though, which makes this a bit more difficult.::

"Are you sure," Iocina teased, running her fingers down the woman's sides, "You've always served, you've always put others before yourself, or you wouldn't have chosen your profession," she gripped the woman's hips, squeezing until the woman squirmed again.

::I'm not giving any hints on this one. Master her without being in her mind. That means even when your powers return, you stay out until I give you permission. As for what I think of her, I think she has pride. I love breaking pride.::

"Yes-s-s," she groaned, but there was something uncertain about the way she said it. She rocked against Iocina. "I'm not like this," she whispered. "Not this way, please..."

Iocina kissed her, very slowly exploring the taste of her. She put just enough space between them to slip a hand between her legs. Zyro's hands dropped to her sides limply, not fighting back. She'd have to learn to struggle more, it was more fun and if she didn't Alianne might kill her on accident. She sucked the plump lower lip and bit down gently and increased the pressure until she felt a flinch.

"I think you need this, you have been denying herself," her fingers twitched against soft fuzz until she met something smooth. "When was the last time someone touched you here? What else have you neglected in your life pet?"

She moaned, pinned beneath Iocina's hands and lips. "That's, I'm not, I just didn't," she protested. "Please don't do this!" she cried out suddenly.

Iocina let her face go blank, "Did you forget your place now?" she asked with an emotionless tone, "What are you now?" she slid a finger deep inside and found her wet, "Who do you belong to?"

Her face crumpled. "I am a slave. Mistress Worm."

::And the Jedi would deny us this,:: he exulted in her mind. ::Bring her to fullness. Make her feel the betrayal of her body.::

"That's right, our Lord's slave and my pet for as long as it pleases him," she pushed forward, wrapping her free arm around the woman and turning her to face the wall. She pressed her against her body, pinning her against the wall.

She took her time, stroking and penetrating her with her fingers. Dropping a small kiss on a shoulder, before biting down suddenly. She increased her speed as the Zyro began to whimper and shake, pleading and begging for Iocina to stop. She finally cried out, clenching around Iocina's fingers as she slumped down. Iocina let her drop, crouching down to lift the woman's chin.

"Open your mouth," she ordered, and gave her chin a rough shake until she complied, "This is what you are now, and you're going to become intimately familiar with this taste until you decide you want to be more than a pleasure slave who gets to be a doctor once in awhile," she slid her sticky fingers in the slave's mouth, "Clean me off and don't spit it out."

Zyro obediently cleaned her fingers, hands clasped over her womanhood as she did so, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"I just want to go home," she whispered when she was finished.

"I did too," she said, "but now I never want to leave. Its up to you whether you pine away or become stronger for what you'll endure here." She stepped out of the shower and held out her arms, "Dry me off."

She closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath, then pulled herself up to her feet and collected a towel.

"I'll try, Mistress Worm," she said.

"Trying doesn't get you anything, its what you do that matters. If you set out to try, you'll fail every time and will learn nothing. If you set out to accomplish a goal completely, you have a much better chance of succeeding or at least learning from your failures."

"I understand, Mistress Worm."

***

"They had the wrong picture," Vrook said. "Unbelievable. They were looking for the wrong man the entire time. Ullan marched into a high society gathering right under their noses, and butchered everyone there."

Vandar clasped his hands together hidden within his sleeves, "I wonder," he said, "did he send Iocina away before the massacre to send her on a mission of her own, or to get her out of the way because she would try to help the patrons of the club?"

"She's broken to him," Vrook said. "We've seen that. She had safe refuge here, a master who trusted her, and she abused that trust to run back to the Sith. She's lost to us, forever. She should be regarded as just as much of a target as Ullan."

"In the confinement cells, she revealed to me that he's addicted her to pain. She didn't say as much, but harmed herself by accident and reacted as though it were a," he sighed, "very pleasant thing."

"Hivvis told me she has no mental shields, Ullan destroyed them. She'd have no way to fight back if he decided to destroy her mind and make her a puppet. It would have been easy for him, to manipulate someone who was already fragile. He was always good at that. She deserves our pity, not scorn. If she has fallen, it was not her choice."

"There is always a choice. For all of them," he said. "Revan, Malak, Ullan, Rens, Ma'k'nle, now Iocina, they have all fallen by their own choices. Her first choice was to hold onto her attachment to Rens rather than to purge it away. Then she defied the Council to run away follow Rens. Then she chose to follow Ullan. Do not absolve them of their decisions in the matter."

"Ullan sent the message she saw, luring her to Vilargo. It was foolish, but it doesn't condemn her. If we condemned every padawan for making foolish decisions we wouldn't have any left to Knight. I also don't believe it was her decision to run away," he said, "If Hivvis had not released her she would be here and well again. It was a hard choice to repeat the procedure with her, and Hivvis convinced us he agreed."

"I don't absolve anyone of their decisions, all I want is to amend her bounty to take her alive at all costs. If we have her here we can save her from Ullan and herself."

"Like we saved Revan?" he spat. "A mind-wiped shell of a man that we had to hide in the fleet because we can't even maintain security here in the temple? We're losing this war because we're weak. We should have collected Revan and his followers from the outset. We never should have permitted this schism in the first place!"

"Calm yourself," Vandar said, his face grave, "What will you do when Bastila returns with Arvil Neth, and introduces him as a Force sensitive? Will you argue again, showing a less than united front when the decision has already been made?"

He turned away, "Do you, then, also take responsibility for your actions which may have influenced young Iocina to leave here in search of her Master? So eager to condemn the victims of the Dark Side, do you absolve yourself of all wrongdoing?"

"I follow the teachings that have been handed down for thousands of years, the same teachings that brought us peace and prosperity in the first place," he insisted.

"Ah, the teachings. You interpret the teachings rigidly, as though they apply to everyone in exactly the same way. We are all individuals, Vrook, and some methods of teaching will not work for all. I protested when the council voted Padawan Denara into your care, Hivvis made his offer but you and others disagreed. Do you think if she had gone to Hivvis from the beginning that she would be lost in the darkness now? I am not one to question the will of the Force, but free will dictates that some may walk against it," he shook his head sadly, "We have all failed her, and we may not absolve ourselves of this responsibility."

"We can argue this endlessly," Janis Girrn said. "Or we can discuss the practical. Ullan said he would keep the secret, and he seems to have done exactly that. RepInt has seen no probes toward Revan's location. Given the fluid nature of Sith politics, Ullan may be holding on to the information for his own ends."

"Ullan was a believer," Vrook said. "It was his voice that turned a great many of the Jedi who patrolled the Rim. Perhaps he expects to displace Malak.

"I have doubts about that," Vandar moved to settled into his seat, "He is not the type to make long term plans or enjoy the mess and responsibility of rule. I do however worry that Padawan Denara may only be the first young Jedi he ensnares. Creating new Sith would entertain him and he could give them to Malak afterwards, unless it were only something he did to hurt us."

Vrook snorted. "Ullan's an aesthete, not an empire-builder. It is very likely that he would capture and convert Jedi just to taunt us, though. Very much like him. He must be a priority for capture. Second only to Malak."

"Agreed," Girrn said. "I will make a personal responsibility of it."

The Corellian Jedi master nodded to Vandar and Vrook and took his leave.

"If more Jedi escape or are rescued from Ullan or one like him, might I recommend a better method of containing them than a bed in the healer's wing," Bala Nisi said sardonically, "The confinement cells would be a good place to start, although they aren't set up for long term use."

She looked around the room steadily, "We'd need medical beds and equipment and, apparently, a new supply of Force suppression drugs."

"What do you mean?" Vandar said, voice gone quiet. There had been enough to handle several patients for a season.

Bala smoothed a hand over her lips, "It seems all ten vials went missing with Padawan Denara. She couldn't have taken them herself, she had no opportunity and only a Master could access them,"

"Hivvis then," said Vandar, "must have given them to her, hoping she would use them to cut herself from the Force, away from the lure of the dark side."

"A noble gesture," said Zhar, "but we must hope that they were lost in the destruction of the vessel otherwise they must be in the hands of Darth Ullan. Force knows what he'll do with all of it."

"Nothing good, for certain," Vrook said. "These are dark times, brothers and sisters. We must all look to the Force for guidance."

**

As Iocina was finishing up with Zyro, the ship suddenly dropped from hyperspace.

Need you up front. Now.

Still nude, Iocina left Zyro holding a towel as she sprinted toward the cockpit. Either she'd sit there and cry or make herself useful by checking on Bronus.

"Master?"

He held up a hand. "This is the full, deciphered formula?" he demanded of the indigo-skinned man on the comm.

"Of course, Lord Ullan. The metastatic properties were difficult to isolate, but I have achieved full replication."

"I know," Ullan said. "I can sense it."

"I've done what you asked," the man said.

"Yes yes, your family is fine. You escort will be taking you to them soon."

He killed the channel, then opened an audio link. "Fin, Case Sigma initiate."

"Case Sigma understood."

Ullan killed the comm channel and began punching new coordinates into the nav computer. On the screen a rotating display showed some sort of esoteric formula.

"Find the treasure in what others overlook," he said. Even with her blunted Force sense, she could feel the excitement rolling off of him.

Iocina sank down to her knees, examining the incomprehensible readout, "What has you so excited, Master?" she frowned slightly, her hair was still wet and it dripped down her spine.

A tingle of the Force tugged on her collar, pulling her head around. "That is the formula for a Force-reactive alloy. I've had a small quantity of it, but it's taken years to unlock the secrets. Now I can duplicate it in mass volume."

He reached out to touch the collar with his metal hand. She felt a buzz in her mind, a form of static.

"Imagine, if you will, servants implanted with this metal, control devices that I can reach from across the galaxy to activate."

He paused. "I feel like I should insert an evil laugh here."

"Go ahead," she grinned up at him, "if you feel you've earned it. Mind you could end up sounding like a bad holo villain but you have a better voice than most of them," her smile slipped from her face and she looked away, waiting to be disciplined. She'd slipped and likely spoken much too freely.

She reached up to stroke a finger over the collar herself, "Is that what this is made of?" she asked, it had been particularly restless against her skin ever since she'd broken into the bounty hunters' lair.

"It is. We still don't know how it works, but the ancient Sith Lord Amaganeth the Noxious, who probably did favor the occasional evil laugh, used something like this to control an entire slave legion. Through his metal arm..."

He lifted the arm and flexed the hand. "Some other idiot got his lightsaber."

"You said the others you were with went for the obvious toys," she said, "Did the slaves all have these collars?" she slipped a finger beneath it and tried to touch the skin of her throat under it, but the metal shifted and thickened into a skin tight barrier. It wasn't quite choking her, but it wasn't about to relax either.

"And your arm controls it?"

He nodded. "It only comes off if I permit," he said. "But I'm thinking more in the way of an implant. More inconspicuous that way."  
He glanced at his hand and a sudden vision flashed into her mind

Ullan sat in the dark, illuminated only by his lightsaber.

Are you ready?

Darth Plozin's voice, so briefly known but so distinctive.

He nodded and lifted his arm, both arms still flesh. His lightsaber rotated toward him.

Agony/Bliss

She let out her gasp in a slow hiss, "Was that," she started then shook her head, "Stupid question. How could you be sure it would work?"

He shrugged. "You've never been in a war. Waiting for certainty is waiting for death. The Mandalorians were evolving, new weapons, new tactics. We had to stay ahead of them. I certainly wasn't the only one trying out ancient Sith technology. Someday maybe you'll get to see Revan's great find."

He turned and slammed down the lever. "Now we just need the manufactory, and fortunately I know just the place."

"No risk, no gain," she agreed. "May I go finish drying off Master?" a hesitation, "And do you want me in another dress?" she wasn't particularly looking forward to one at the moment, they were attractive but hampered movement.

"Yes, and dress up the other two slaves. We're going to train, we have a world to conquer."

He turned back to gaze at the formula with loving eyes.

When she stepped out into the hallway, she found Zyro on hands and knees, scrubbing the floor with a cleansing unit that had been tied of with a short tether to her neck.

She walked past, ignoring her for the moment, and went to find Alianne. When she found the slave in the galley she shook her head slowly. The girl was sitting down, head propped on one fist and dozing. Iocina walked quietly in front of her and slapped her, it was hard enough that she tumbled to the floor.

"You should have slept in your cage new slave," Iocina hissed, grabbing her by the hair and shaking her, "If my Lord doesn't sleep neither do we. Now explain to me why you thought you could take your ease in here? Did you think my new pet would take up your slack and give you a moment of respite?"

"I'm sorry, mistress!" she babbled. "I had no orders and did not know what to do!"

She fell to the floor in the position of submission, groveling at Iocina's feet.

"If you have no orders report to my Lord and wait for him to give you one, or find something to do yourself," she hissed, "Come, we're to dress and report to him now."

Iocina dragged her by the hair to the closet by the sonic shower and shoved her to her knees. She unattached Zyro from the cleaner and switched it off, motioning the woman to kneel beside Alianne.

She turned her back on them and sorted through them, choosing a particulaly uncomfortable gown for Alianne, and one slightly less for Zyro. She dropped the clothing in front of them and pulled one out for herself.

"Dress me pet," she said with a nudge for Zyro.

"Yes Mistress Worm," Zyro said. She rose to her feet shakily and grabbed the dress, then fumbled to put it on Iocina.

Alianne slipped her dress on quickly, hissing as she did and the burn patches came alive at contact with her skin. She squirmed and turned her face from Iocina.

Iocina settled into the dress and waited for Zyro to slip hers on. She immediately frowned and Alianne smirked.

"New slave," she said, pointing at the redhead, "report to my Lord. I need to instruct this little slave before we join you."

Turning her attention to Zyro she tugged the woman's dress into place. "Our Master loves power, pain, and fear, as he has already demonstrated. I'm sure you've noticed that this clothing is uncomfortable, even painful."

"Yes, mistress," Zyro said, trying not to shift in place.

"I hate the slave who just left us, so I gave her a much worse pain toy to endure. That doesn't mean I won't do the same to you, and for no reason but to amuse myself. Do you understand?"

"Yes mistress," Zyro whispered, then added, "Thank you, mistress."

"I also want you to understand something important. I do not know if, when we arrive at our destination, you will be coming with us off the ship. If that is the case, and you get a notion to find a rescuer or someone who will contact the Republic or your family to report your plight, I will make you watch as I kill anyone whom you call to for help. I will also kill anyone who I suspect might have heard you. Are we clear?"

She shuddered. "Very clear, mistress. This... this is my life now."

"What is?" Ullan asked as he breezed in, package of ration chips in hand.

"I am your... property, my lord."

He munched on a chip. "So you are, so you are." He stepped around her, eyeing her from head to toe, then gave her an experimental prod on the bottom. She jumped slightly and he chuckled, wrapping an arm around her, his hand settling on her throat. He offered the chips over her shoulder to Iocina. "Hungry, worm?"

"Why yes, thank you Master," she stepped closer, trapping Zyro between them as she reached into the bag, "What did you mean about training?" she asked, feeling the woman begin to shiver.

"Sparring, if course. The slaves will help with that."

He whispered into Zyro's ear. "You want to help, don't you slave?"

Her teeth were chattering slightly from the fear. "Yes my lord."

"Of course you do," he said, nuzzling at her neck. "You're going to be a good slave for your master. Say it."

"I'm going to be a good slave for my master," she choked out as she began to cry again.

He reached down between her breasts to reclaim the chips. "No," he said, his voice little more than a sinister hiss "you won't ever see them again."

She seemed to melt in between them, only his grip on her throat keeping her upright. He used his other hand to tug Iocina toward him, meeting her in a slow, sensual kiss.

Iocina slid her arms around Zyro, brushing against the triple line of studs attached inward on her hips as she tentatively touched Ullan's sides. She pressed her body against the woman, feeling her skin prickle pleasantly as fear fluttered through the faint connection she had to the Force.

With what little bit of power she'd managed to gather she drank in Zyro's fear and pushed it down the bond to Ullan.

He savored the taste, growling low in his throat. He dropped the chips on the floor and reached down between Zyro's legs.

"Pain, fear, and pleasure. You'll learn how these blend together."

Zyro began to moan and squirm.

::Keep hurting the little slave.::

::Gladly.::

Iocina grasped Zyro's hips, pressing the metal points into her soft flesh. They were just barely sharp enough to break the skin with enough pressure, and she could tell when the drew blood by the sharp intake of breath. She could feel Zyro's heart beating rapidly through her chest against her own.

He continued working, forcing an involuntary rocking in Zyro's hips as pleasure began to flow through her, counterpointing the sweet agony at her hips.

"Oh stars," she moaned.

"You're welcome," he muttered, squeezing her breast and giving her just the slightest shock, bringing a surprised squeal.

"You exist for my pleasure and my needs," he muttered.

"I exist for my master's pleasure and needs," she moaned, unprompted.

"Exactly. Now beg me to finish this."

"Please master... PLEASE MASTER!" she shrieked suddenly, as he intensified the sensations. She went rigid suddenly, body arced in orgasm. Moments later as it passed, she tried to squirm away from his hand.

"Never refuse your body to me," he growled and she moaned in sweet agony once more as he sent an afterburn of stimulation through her.

"Now, wasn't that lovely?" she asked, "What do you say when someone's done something nice for you, little slave?" Iocina asked. She placed her fingers beneath Zyro's chin, raising her face up to show a scarlet face streaked with tears.

"Thank you, Master," she whimpered, dropping her forehead on Iocina's shoulder.

He suddenly stepped back and Zyro slumped as dead weight, sagging to the floor. He nudged her with his boot. "Get up, you. No time to lay about, I'm going to teach the Worm how Sith spar. Come along, New Slave."

He gestured toward the cargo bay, which had become disheveled and scattered somehow, with parts and bits laying about randomly. He snatched up a vibrosword and tossed casually, blade-first, at Iocina.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Jedi," he said. "Yes, that is us. We are Jedi. Lead on, we are here to help you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots and lots of violence...

She ducked under it and spun to catch it in a backhanded grip, face serious. "I'd say I'm looking forward to it Master, but my track record is awful.

"You learn by getting beaten until you get tired of losing," he said. "Or you die."

He ignited his lightsaber and pulled the slaves into the room, where they stood confused. "Do not leave the room or I kill you," he told them.

He lunged, his lightsaber just missing Alianne's head. She screamed as the blade whisked by her head, aimed at Iocina's heart.

When she saw the muscles in his legs flex she rotated the hilt to a front grip and twisted to the side. As she batted the blade to the side away from Alianne, she braced a foot against the slave's side and shoved her out of the way.

Three weeks ago, the girl who'd arrived on Vilargo would have stepped back a pace and waited for his next attack. Now the former padawan moved ahead, and felt a sharp pain in the back of her head as she cast out a net to try and keep track of both slaves and scattered junk. She'd overused her faint Force sense and whatever part of her brain let her access it felt oddly bruised.

She lunged forward herself, bringing the sword up and not through to shove his blade to the side and kicked out at the big muscle in his thigh.

He blocked with his metal arm, smacking her calf hard enough to leave a deep bruise but not enough to smash the bone.

He flipped backwards and landed behind Zyro, then kicked her in the bank, launching her at Iocina.

As the slave flew at Iocina he leapt and ran along the wall, stabbing out at her.

Iocina simply dodged around the woman, one hand grazing her hip to aim her out of the way a bit. She didn't particularly care if either slave was hurt, short of death or dismemberment.

Ducking away from his blow, she scowled and shouted at the slaves, "Get the frak up you morons, your Master told you not to leave the room - not stand there like nerfs and let yourselves get killed."

She rolled out of the way of another blow, swiping at the back of his calf, then came up to her feet once she inevitably missed.

"Is this how you'd serve your Master if he allowed you to follow him, cowering and whining? The least you can do is run!"

Alianne began running around the room, trying to stay clear. Zyro gaped for a second, then did the same.

He descended to the floor and grabbed Alianne's hair in a wad right behind her head, advancing with her held like a shield, lightsaber held over her shoulder like a spear. He was pushing Iocina toward a jumbled pile of debris.

"I don't like you slave, so you'd better start fighting," she grinned, beginning to feel the same manic glee she'd felt when killing the mercenaries. She cleared her mind and acted, lunging forward to aim the sword at Ullan between Alianne's arm and side. She repeated the trick she'd done with the rushing mercenary, using the tiniest bit of power to push down on the toe of his boot to effect his balance.

He hop-stepped to the side, the blade fluttering under Alianne's armpit. He flicked the lightsaber up and then suddenly slammed Alianne's forehead into Iocina's mouth.

He pressed forward, using Alianne's head as a battering ram.

She dropped, letting them go over her. She grunted as a boot came down on her elbow, and knew if she had been lying still it would have broken. She dragged the weapon with her, managing to cut a neat slit down the inside of his thigh. She rolled onto her shoulders and flipped over, landing in a crouch with her sword in a crossing block across her chest.

He discarded Alianne behind him, sending her face first into the wall. She slid bonelessly to the floor, out cold and becoming part of the obstacle course.

Now that she'd drawn blood, she could see the killing light come into his eyes. He dropped into his preferred Makashi style, moving with a fluid, expert grace, flicking and flowing, continually challenging her defenses.

She reached a point in her mind where she acted, reacted, and moved without consciously thinking about it. This was one of the many things that had made Vrook afraid of her. She knew now that it hadn't been simple dislike between the two of them, he'd been afraid of what she could become. She never seemed to score on Ullan, but did manage to get in some of the dirty tricks she'd picked up from Hivvis. Yuld had been too much of an idealist to teach her street fighting, or slicing computer systems and locks.

She knew her face was split into a huge grin, but couldn't really feel it anymore. All she was focused on was the dance.

Blade clashed against lightsaber, the slaves forgotten, both laying on the floor now, dazed and battered, just part of the scattered debris that made their movements dangerous and their balance precarious.

He locked the blades in a circular sweep, sending her blade flying away. Reaching out with his metal arm he grabbed her by the throat and slammed her into the wall.

"Yield."

She thought about fighting back, unsure if it would please or anger him. If she'd been able to fully embrace her power she might have, but she nodded as much as the grip around her throat would let her. His hand around the collar felt odd, more uncomfortable than it had been even when he'd first snapped it around her neck, making her squirm.

He leaned in and licked the blood on her chin, hers or Alianne's or both.

"Your form needs work," he said. "But you know when to break from it. Another year or two and I can make a real warrior out of you."

He kicked Zyro lightly in the side. "Up, slave. Repairs all around."

"Thank you Master," she said, determination rose in her. The deep desire to become whatever he needed her to be was growing.

"I thought," she said as got her feet under her, "that when I asked you to break me it would take longer. Much longer actually."

"You broke yourself when you asked."

He turned on her. "Is there anything I could ask you now that you wouldn't do? Not just do, but enjoy?"

He touched her once more. "When we first met, you were afraid of my touch. Now you violate a woman in the shower and enjoy it."

He put his metal hand over her heart. "I just ripped off the shields that were hiding the monster inside of you. This is you, Iocina. The killer. The rapist of mind and body. The sadist. This is what you were meant to be. That, and," his hand drifted down to her breast and closed painfully around it "mine."

She made a soft pleased sound, suddenly realizing she was wet. She couldn't remember if that had happened when Zyro had been trapped between them, or if it had been the fight.

"This is why we have a Force bond isn't it?" she asked, "I thought, at first, it was something you'd done to me. I think I said that to Vrook on Dantooine, but that's not true."

"I invaded you, that's what started it. But the way it grew so strong, so quickly, that was your own need. You have a hole in you, same as I."  
He stroked her, the metal hand not gentle. "You belong at my side."

His hand forced her down. "And at my feet."

She knelt almost reverently, "Yes, and that's why I ran," she said, "I was afraid of what I am, but I'm not afraid anymore."

"And so you've been broken. Now we build, worm. You're going to learn how to break a people now."

He cuffed her head, then walked back toward the medbay.

Zyro was already tending to Alianne, who slapped her on the mouth when the disinfectant stung her.

Let her have some fun, He sent. Aloud, he spoke up. "Listen to your elder sister, slave."

Zyro glanced at him. "Yes my lord. I am sorry, elder sister."

"Stupid barve," Alianne fumed.

"Teach her all the bows, and how to speak properly," she added to Alianne as they passed.

I want Alianne to hurt her, so long as she doesn't kill, maim, or damage her hands or mind enough that she can't be our doctor. The worse Alianne will treat her, I'll be kind and cruel in turns. she ran her fingers along the wall as she walked, I have this feeling that she's a bit like me, in that she has a lot of passion in her that she's repressed her whole life. Its like Alianne's viciousness and anger, when it comes out we'll see who and what she really is.

"Yes mistress, your will be done," Alianne said.

"After she's finished patching everyone up," Ullan said. He shed his clothes as he walked, then glanced at Alianne, who scurried to collect them. "Don't be gentle," he ordered as Zyro moved in to inspect his wounds.

"Of course not, my lord."

Just like her battle with the mercenaries Iocina hadn't even realized she was bleeding until she watched Zyro work. She reached a hand up to her forehead and found blood oozing from a cut in her scalp. Further examination found one side of her face to be streaked with blood, with another split above her eyebrow. It must have happened one of the times she'd slammed into the floor.

Her elbow was purple and green, nearly black at the tender curve of the joint. She noticed a quite few burns where her skin had been licked by the tip of Ullan's saber and let out a slow breath, breathed again laughed. That was close, she thought, maybe next time I'll have one or two less of these.

Both Zyro and Alianne made small movements of unease when her laugh broke the silence. That was good too.

He chuckled as well as Zyro used the skin sealer on his leg. "Go tend to mistress Worm," he ordered Alianne.

"Yes master."

Alianne dropped down and slowly crawled over to Iocina. Her face was bloody as well, from where he'd used her head as a battering ram. One hand was gnarled from being stomped, and she had a collection of bruises, burns, and cuts for stray shots from the duel.

"What is your pleasure, mistress Worm?"

She assumed the position and kissed Iocina's shoe.

"Ever had your shoes polished?" he asked.

The taste of Vilargo was on her tongue, the grit clinging to her mouth and throat as she lapped his boots clean. She'd been terrified, and then horrified that she'd actually began doing it, and disgusted with herself when she realized she liked it. She'd liked being vulnerable, at his complete mercy and unable to do anything but obey.

She tilted her head to the side, "No Master, I haven't," she looked down at the top of the slaves head, red-gold hair tangled and dirty from rolling on the floor and being dragged by it, and slid her foot forward an inch, "keep going slave."

"Thank you, mistress." She lifted her bottom and let it sway as she worked, making a long, slow process of it. She moaned softly as she worked, giving the indication of pleasure from her labors.

It was an entirely convincing act, if Iocina didn't know her so well.

Ullan toyed with Zyro's hair. "How do you like it between my legs, slave?"

She kept her eyes on her work. "It's fine, master."

He lifted his manhood and rubbed it against her cheek. She froze for a second, then continued working.

"Kiss me," he ordered.

She stopped and kissed him on the very tip

"That lacked passion," he said in a disappointed tone."

She sighed, then shoved the tip of her boot into Alianne's throat. The slave fell back, choking, and glared at her poisonously.

"You see, you're still thinking I'm just a slave aren't you? That one day you'll be able to claw your way up and take my place?"

"Never, mistress," she sputtered. "I live only to serve my master."

He stroked Zyro's lip. "Did you hear that?" he said. "That is your entire existence now. So when you kiss me, you do it with hunger, desire, and passion. Show me that you need to please me, because your life does actually depend on it."

He tapped her face. "Again. With hunger and need. Fake it until you feel it, if need be."

She kissed at his manhood once more, more emphatically.

"Clumsy," he chided.

"I'm sorry!" she said. "My lord! I'm sorry! I don't know how to do this! I'm not a sla- I've never been a slave before!"

"And the quicker you learn, the less of this you'll receive," he said.

He lifted a hand and bathed her with lightning.

Iocina grabbed Alianne by the hair and pinned her down, turning her face towards the show. They both watched silently, two faces with nearly identical expressions of appreciation. Alianne enjoyed seeing the other slave in pain, squirming beneath Iocina's hands. Iocina enjoyed watching her Master's face as he tortured her, a master manipulator.

"Watch this," she whispered in Alianne's ear, "someday soon, I'm going to learn to do this. I'm going to practice on you, and we'll see how long you continue in your attempts to undermine me."

She sighed appreciatively at the sounds coming out of Zyro's throat, Do I sound like that when I'm writhing on the floor? she wondered, Does he look that way when he tortures me?

He stopped to let Zyro catch her breath, then started once more. She writhed and screamed, but he was obviously giving her less than he typically have Iocina.

"I'm not, mistress," Alianne whispered. "I want to be like you."

"And what am I that you want to emulate, slave?" she wasn't quite ready to destroy Alianne's hopes of becoming a Sith Lord, and she thought it would amuse her Master to play along with it for awhile.

She watched a few moments longer, idly running a fingernail down the side of Alianne's face. She wasn't afraid of her, not really. She pretended she was, but it was an act for her Master's benefit. How could she both know that the Sith could read her thought, and think she could hide her feelings?

Iocina licked her finger and ran it through the cooling blood on her own face, then began to draw on Alianne's chest. From shoulder to shoulder she wrote, wetting her finger in her own blood as she went. Nern, onith, trill, herf, isk, nern, grek.

"You are nothing, you don't deserve to learn at our Master's feet, until you realize you also must serve at mine," she said, "willingly. I want you to beg me to let you obey and mean it. I want to hear it in your voice, and read it in your thoughts."

"You're a lovely little monster, but you have a lot to learn about where to focus your hatred."

 

 

Alianne looked up at her, a switch flipping visibly behind her eyes. She turned back to Iocina's feet. "This slave is nothing, Mistress Worm. Please, teach this slave what you know, that she may have power too. That she can hurt and destroy like you. This slave is a vessel for Mistress' desire."

Zyro lay groaning at Ullan's feet. "You know what comes next, slave," he murmured.

She groaned, her body stiffened by the continuous spasms the electricity had induced in her, and slowly, painfully, she turned onto her belly and kissed his boot.

"This slave... thanks her master... for her punishment," she groaned out."

"You will also thank me for the opportunity to serve me," he added.

She began to force herself upright, faltered with a groan, then lifted herself to her knees.

"May this slave.. please... thank her master... for letting her serve him?"

He gestured and she leaned forward, kissing at his manhood. "This slave thanks you, my lord," she whispered.

"That, slave, is power," she said, "If you're observant you'll learn that yourself, as I did. I learned that by doing the things I'm asking you to do."

Iocina dragged the tip of her boot through the scattered trash on the ground. Alianne's saliva from her false attempt before caused dirt to cake the top and sides of the black boot.

"Now, let's start again. Tell me why this is so filthy and beg me to let you clean it."

Zyro felt as though every pain and fear she'd ever experienced in her life had been relived, she felt unclean and couldn't stop the tears that spilled out of her.

This is all I am now, she thought, cringing as she took the tip of the Sith's length into her mouth. She had never done this before, had only desired women. Behind her she could hear Worm speaking in a soft remorseless voice, but her ears were ringing from having electricity coursing through her and she couldn't make out any words.

She wished she could trade places with the other slave, as sick as it would be to lick filth from someone's shoes.

She tentatively curled her tongue around the smooth harness on her mouth. She knew women who loved this act, who actually taught themselves how to take a man into their throats to the hilt. The thought had made her shake her head, finding the whole thing a bit gross. But then her male loving friends had thought it was gross to lick and suck at another woman's sex.

I'm no one, I'm nothing, she repeated, I'm a slave, I have no home, I have no family, if she told herself that enough times, maybe she'd believe it. Maybe she'd stop caring.

He smiled down at her and tapped her nose. "Just a taste for later. You still have work to do. Now thank me like a good little slave."

"Thank you, my lord," she said. "Thank you very much."

"Your life may depend on this someday," he said casually as he shifted around in the seat. "Now get back to work, my little whore."

Alianne lifted her rear up in the air again. "This slave is disrespectful and insolent," she said "and did not please her mistress. She begs her mistress for another chance to do her duty, but will accept whatever the mistress gives her."

"Hm, I'm not sure I believe you," she said, "explain to me why you were only pretending to enjoy serving me. Be explicit." She slid her other foot forward, down the length of Alianne's body and drew her forward by her hair again, until it rested against the slaves mound.

"Start talking," she said, very slowly moving her her foot back and forth.

She calls me Mistress to my face, she met her Master's eyes, but she's calling me slave in her mind, I don't even need the Force to tell that.

Her motives run deeper than that. You're being a bit unfair, but of course being unfair is the joy of power. We don't owe these weak creatures respect, fairness, or dignity. If they wanted that, they should've been strong enough to not be slaves.

"This slave did not respect you because this slave is young and weak and foolish," she said. As she spoke, the embers of the Force flashed a sudden image into Iocina's head.

Voices. Screaming voices, hundreds of them, perhaps thousands. Alianne sat on a dusty, broken throne, surrounded by eyeless men and women, all chained to the throne by links of slowly squirming metal.

Black smoke poured from their mouths as they chanted in unison.

"Poison Queen. Poison Queen. Poison Queen."

"...and this slave has learned that even if she does not enjoy or wish to do a task, she must pretend her joy or suffer for it."

"Shut up," Ullan snapped. ::What did you just see?::

Iocina closed her eyes and tilted her head back, trying to recapture the scene in her mind. As she began to piece it together she tried to push it down the bond. Whatever energy she'd had left had finally burned out of her as the vision ended. She reached a hand out to touch him, fingers brushing his hand and let the images trickle through her mind and into his.

::What was that?::

“”That was a vision, maybe a remnant of contact with the Devourer. I sensed a destiny on her when I took her from the pirates, but nothing so concrete. 'Poison Queen', he chuckled in her mind. Sounds like the sort of pretentious nonsense the Sith'ari so adored.::

Behind Alianne's back he smiled down at her. ::This is why I don't want her broken. She has a destiny, and I intend to shape it.::

::The metal in those chains?:: She ran a finger over the collar, the weird material rippled as though following her touch.

::At least in that vision it looks like I get production up and running. But visions are meaningless if we don't make them happen. The future is in constant motion, and we only gain the rewards we earn.::

He made a small mew of sound as Zyro applied a regenerater to his damaged ankle. ::Aaaaaaah, that's good. So how do you like your collar, my little slave? You know it's never coming off, right?::

::I was already fairly sure of that.::

She pulled herself up and released Alianne, "Go find something useful to do."

::Will you allow me to wean off the suppressors now, Master?::

::Crawl over here and beg me, mind to mind. Swear your allegiance, swear hatred of my enemies, and pledge your life to me. I know how you feel, I can see into you. I want to hear you articulate it. You will never be above abasing yourself before me, because you belong here.::

::Yes.::

She crawled to him, like a predator stalking prey through high grass, and lay her forehead on his boot. She breathed in the scent of leather and sweat, the still clinging incense smell of his soap. 

::I swear my allegiance to you, my Master, my Lord. In your service I vow to do great and terrible things, to let your will run through me, to obey you in all things. Make of me what you will, to bring swift death to your enemies, to break those you would rule, to belong to you for the rest of my life. If it serves you my Lord, gift me my power to use only at your indulgence.::

It was a curious sensation, a mental stroking, little starbursts of pleasure and pain piercing through her body.

::Rise, my apprentice. Your oath is accepted. My word, your life.::

She rose slowly to her knees, a feeling of sweet release suffusing her body. Everything felt so right, she was where she was meant to be.

::Thank you, my Master.::

The last shreds of uncertainty fell away and she felt completely whole, finally.

He slapped Zyro on the back of her head. "Tend to Mistress Iocina, slave," he said.

He reclined the chair and slid until he was laying on his side.

Zyro turned to Iocina. "Our master will have me attend you now, Mistress Iocina." She gestured toward the other chair.

She moved to the chair and smiled at the little doctor as she laid her trembling fingers against her skin. She had to peel back damaged parts of the dress to get at the wounds.

Iocina waved her off and stripped, revealing row upon row of tiny barbs on the inside of bodice. Tiny scrapes dotted her body, even small gouges of flesh had been carved out around the places she'd been struck or had fallen. Three of them were melted into her skin where Ullan's lightsaber and caressed her hip.

All she felt was an intense pleasure.

"Mistress," whispered Zyro, "I must cut them out of your skin."

"Then do so," she said, "slowly please."

Zyro set to work, steady once more now that she had a purpose

Ullan got up and sat on the back of Iocina's chair. He reached down and traced fingers along her skin.

::You will remain denied the pleasure of release because you are a worthless insect who failed to kill a single Jedi in a temple full of them. You will, however, beg me each time you get close, so that I can remind you of your old weakness and failure.::

::I understand Master, she leaned into the touch as pain swept through her body, automatically finding and channeling through into eroticism. She didn't even have to think about it anymore.::

::How long until we reach our destination?::

Two weeks. It's far, far out on the fringes of the Outer Rim. Lost and forgotten by everyone else but me.

***

To all appearances it was a dead world, a blighted rock orbiting the dwindling remnants of a white dwarf star. A deep crevice ran along one quarter of the surface, and only good scanners could detect the emissions of the civilization below the crust.

"They were cut off right at the outset of the war," he explained. "This was a Czerka Corporation mining facility,population of approximately six thousand. Their interstellar travel capacities were neutralized, then the Mandies set up a sat grid to shoot down any in-system craft they tried to launch and jam any hyperwave comms. They were probably planning on coming back for it later, but they never did."

He sat with his feet on the console, twirling his lightsaber around his wrist. "They've had no contact with the rest of the galaxy for the better part of a decade. We're going to end their isolation."

He had dressed the two of them in the Jedi robes Bronus had manufactured. The slave had had a slow, painful recovery, not aided by his demands for labor as soon as she was vaguely capable of labor.

Nor had his lusts given her any respite.

Iocina felt distinctly uncomfortable in her Jedi robes, which was odd and confusing. She'd worn them her entire life, until recently, but now it felt vaguely wrong. She realized she was actually more comfortable nude and gave a soft laugh.

"Am I going to be your Padawan or a knight?" she asked, stroking a finger down the length of the metal cylinder at her belt, "Padawan would let me call you Master without anyone thinking twice about it."

"Padawan of course," he said. "We present ourselves as saviors long enough to get face to face with their leadership, then we inform them of the change in management."

He smirked at her discomfort in the robes, his amusement rippling along the link. Since he'd restored her powers, their link was now a strong, constant bond that only faded when he deliberately shielded himself from her, usually during his machine-assisted meditation/tinkering binges.

“”You look like a barve waiting for the slaughter. You know, I used to think an attractive woman in Jedi robes was a waste. But a ghost of me told you that exact thing, didn't it?””

“Yes, you did. You also said you liked to see Jedi women groveling at your feet. I'll be perfectly happy to do that in these robes when we get back if it pleases you Master.”

She stood gave a small shrug of her shoulders to settle the brown robe, "Before we go down would you mind if I bestow a tender farewell to my old master?"

"Go ahead," he said. "I have no idea how long we'll have him around for."

He leaned back in the chair and extended his lightsaber toward Alianne, who obligingly began to suck on the emitter. He toyed with the activation switch while humming a random, tuneless melody.

The holocron sat on a small shelf in Ullan's quarters, exactly across from the manacles welded to the floor. If she'd still been locked into them, still infected with weakness from her 'trip home' as her Master had called it, it would have been heart rending. As it was she picked it up and rested it on the floor where she knelt.

As it came to life she heard the same scream of agony and denial Yuld had given before, and she waited until the little hologram pulled itself up again.

"Hello master Yuld," she was glad she was wearing the robes now, he'd naturally think she'd been rescued or escaped from the Sith Lord.

"Iocina," he said. "What happened? Are you safe? Did you get away?"

The hope in his holographic features was pathetic, enough to turn the stomach.

"Hivvis found me on Nar Shaddaa," she said, "he took me back to Dantooine."

The look of relief on his face was beatific and she smiled, "They want to erase my memory, my personality, everything that made me who I am. How does that make you feel? Thats all your fault you know."

His face fell. "Master Vandar, Master Hivvis would never..." He began.

"Its true, they've already done it to a Sith," she toyed with a lock of her hair, "Actually, Hivvis helped me to escape. Sent me away while he stopped the council from getting to me."

She sighed, "Do you know what I did then?" at his negative she smiled brightly, "I ran back to Ullan, he tortured me and raped me with the Force. He recorded it and sent it to Vrook."

"Why?" he asked, his voice turning into a plaintive whine. "Why did you come back? You were free, at least. Free of them all!"

"I didn't want to be free, I'm Lord Ullan's slave, and apprentice," she said, "Isn't that what you wanted for me Master? I thought you wanted me to become your apprentice in the dark side? Well here I am. Its only been four and a half weeks since I spoke to you last, and I've learned a great deal."

"I've learned the value of fear and pain, mine and others. When I said before that I knew my place at Ullan's feet I didn't understand what I was doing, but now I do. I don't know how long you'll linger in there, but I wanted you to know you succeeded beyond all your wildest imaginings. I'm a Sith apprentice, fully immersed in the dark side," she tilted her head, "Isn't that what you wanted?"

"Not like this," he said. "I wanted you to be free. I wanted you to set your own path."

"Her path led to me, Yuld."

Ullan stepped from the shadows. "Just like yours did, but you weren't strong enough to see it through."

He beckoned toward his feet.

Iocina crawled to him, the same slow rolling gait she'd taken as she made her vow. She pressed a kiss to his boot, her tunic falling open to reveal the collar around her neck.

"Damn you, Ullan!"

"Damn me? I let her go. She returned. There's something poetic in that."

He lifted a boot and rested it on Iocina's head. "This is her decision. This is her, as she was always meant to be. You know why she hates your memory? Because you weren't strong enough to remake her. She respects me. She fears me. She is mine like she never would have been yours. I'm through with you now, Yuld. This will be the last thing that you see."

He waved a hand and turned the holocron off, then stepped off of her head.

"Destroy it," he said. "Crush it to powder."

She didn't raise her head, simple visualized the device and bent her will on it. Slowly it began to crumple inward, soft snapping sounds indicated something inside it cracking and breaking. When it was only half destroyed she felt the tiny spark of Yuld's presence wink out of the Force. She continued, till it was a shredded wreck of metal.

She rolled her eyes up to smile at Ullan through a curtain of her hair.

He twisted his head to pop his neck. "Time to go procure more slaves."

She got slowly to her feet and bared her teeth in a grin, "Lets go," she agreed.

The ship descended down the narrow channel, coming to a rest on a barn flight deck.

"Life signs ahead. Let's go see what eight years without contact has made of them. "

He slipped the energy shield into his arm, then tossed her one.

"Nothing pleasant, I hope."

She fastened it to her forearm and checked the controls to be sure it was a style she was familiar with,"If Mandalorians have been here, perhaps you'll find a new mask Master," she said, "Are we using our names? It isn't as though they'd know them of course."

She readjusted her robes, wrapping the undertunic closely around her throat to hide the cold shifting metal.

"They didn't invade," he said. "Simply cut the place off to save it for later."

His smile was cold. "We just didn't give them a 'later'. We will use our own names. Best they learn them early and well. They'll be using them to beg for our mercy later."

He looked at the slaves. "Alianne is in charge while I'm out. The ship will be spotless on our return, and the medical facilities ready."

A chorus of 'yes master' answered him. Alianne was smugly content, while Zyro was fearful. Bronus was placid, accepting, even as Alianne eyed her hungrily. She felt him and Alianne a warning pulse, felt her satisfy him with her reply.

She stroked the back of Zyro's head on the way, she wasn't permitted to enter her mind to learn about her but her emotions were free game and took no effort to sense. She was terrified of everyone in a particular order that amused Iocina. Ullan of course was the strongest locus of fear and anxiety, then Alianne, then Iocina herself, and finally Bronus who as far as Iocina knew had barely looked at the little doctor.

When they returned she'd take Zyro aside, a little calm in her storm and repeat her bathing exercise. She'd have a respite from Alianne, and see Iocina as preferable. She wanted the doctor to know Iocina would hurt her, wanted to hurt her, but that she was preferable to Alianne's unpredictable menace.

He strode down the ramp.

No welcoming party yet. Interesting...

As the ramp closed behind him, he called out, sounding warm, friendly, and utterly unlike the Ullan she knew.

Were it not for the scars and the sense of menace that thrummed along their connection, this would be a glimpse of what might have been, had Ullan not followed Revan to war. A master, far more in the mold of a Hyvvis or a Vandar than of a Vrook, certainly more assured at the core than the weakling Rens.

"Hello?" he called. "We come from the Republic to rescue you."

From Republic space, and we are liberating them from their isolation, just not as they'd prefer. Lies, always best cloaked in truth.

"We have a turbolaser trained on your ship," a voice announced over the PA. "One wrong move, and it gets reduced to scrap."

"I would truly prefer that you didn't do that," Ullan said. She felt a thrill of fear over the connection, he played the emotion along, savored it, used it to heighten his awareness. "We are here to help you."

"Then give us your ship."

"Can you come out and talk to us about it?" he asked. "I am Jedi Master Ullan of the Jedi Order, and this is my Padawan Learner, Iocina."

"We're sending someone out to meet you, but at the first hint of, of, anything wrong, and..."

Ullan spread his hands placatingly. "That won't be necessary, I assure you. We come in peace."

Iocina put concern on her face, looking up at Ullan as though saying 'its worse than we thought, how do we help them?'

::They are very afraid. Their threat to destroy the ship is obviously a terrible bluff. If they did so they'd be trapped here maybe forever. If they killed Jedi they'd have no hope of any others coming to their rescue.::

::You're overestimating the rationality of frightened people. Look up to your left, that aperture is where the gun is. There's a gun, and there's a moron with his finger on the trigger. If we don't want to spend a few years to the rest of our lives on this rock, we have to step lightly, at least until the finger is removed.::

The mental chuckle over the link indicated that the removal might be a literal process.

A minute later the lights came up, and a mixed group of humans and aliens approached them, a few of them carrying blasters, others carrying lengths of pipe and other improvised weapons.

"Keep your hands where we can see them," a man said as he approached, blaster focused on Ullan.

"Of course," Ullan said, spreading his hands calmly. "We mean you no harm. We're here to help."

"You can help us by giving us your ship."

"I'm afraid I can't do that. It's a loan from a friend, I'm expected to return it soon."

The man stepped closer, lifting the blaster. "You'll just have to disappoint him, then."

"He doesn't take disappointment well..."

After all, the last time he was disappointed he opened fire on an allied vessel and attempted to murder his master.

"Really though, we can talk about this," Ullan continued. "What is your name, friend?"

"I'm not your friend," the man said. Ullan simply stared at him expectantly, until finally the man answered. "I'm Hattu Mlarn."

"A pleasure, friend Hattu. I am, as I said, Jedi Master Ullan, Archon of the Council, bearer of the Cross of Xenit and Defender of the Sacred Code."

He bowed theatrically, causing the weapons to shift away from Iocina, all bearing on him now.

"In the name of the Thirteen Protocols of Light, Justice, and the Virtues of the Republic, I greet you all."

And these are the sort of people I was meant to spend my life helping, she thought disdainfully, doing everything I could for no thanks, no appreciation, and absolutely no reward.

She bowed as well, her own movement much simpler and with humility. She watched them all carefully as she rose, noticing the lines of tension worn into their faces. They were all thin, some more than others. Either the weaker ones had sacrificed meals to strengthen others, or the strong had taken their due.

Another chuckle over the link. ::Perhaps I'll have you cleaning their shoes after I put them under the yoke, so you can see what you missed out on.::

"We have an impasse," Ullan said. "I cannot let you have my ship, but I also cannot leave without your weapons destroying it. Let us talk, peacefully, and resolve this conundrum to all our benefit."

"You don't understand," the man said. "We can't go back to the Republic. Not after..."

The PA kicked up again. "Shut up, Hattu. Jedi! Surrender the ship or we'll smash it!"

Ullan turned toward the nearest recorder. "No," he said calmly, even as Iocina could feel his fear spiking over the link, controlled and directed, but burning brightly. "Let's talk, friend."

Some of the crew of toughs began to back away, clearly anticipating the rain of fiery death about to be unleashed upon the flight deck. Ullan stood, to all eyes around him as calm and peaceful as a rock. "There is always a peaceful resolution," he said encouragingly "between men of reason."

::Hm, I wonder what he means about not being able to go back to the Republic. It sounds like they've been bad little gentlefolk in the last ten years,:: Iocina thought

::That's what I'm so curious about. It's always fascinating to see what becomes of these little cast-off groups. Some band together and form harmonious self-sustaining unions in the face of adversity. More commonly they degenerate into feral societies. Look at these creatures- there's horror in those eyes. It is beautiful.::

"Remember we have you covered. Bring them up, Hattu."

She felt the fear transform in a flash, burning quickly to anger. This insect had threatened his property, Ullan's ships and slaves. There was a promise of suffering in his emotions, and not the playful sort he gave to his slaves.

"Thank you," he said with a polite nod. "Lead on, friend Hattu."

The group surrounded them, blasters pointed from every direction.

Look at these morons! he marveled. I firmly believe that the character of your opposition directly correlates to your own character, hence why we came back so nicely hardened from battling the Mandalorians. Well, most of us. But every so often, it's nice to deal with fools. Makes for a pleasant diversion.

They were led to a large ship-sized elevator.

Iocina tried to think of what sort of depraved things that a society could degenerate into when cut off from contact and resupply. The planet didn't seem to have any resources that could help with survival.

::Do you know if they had any hydroponic farms, livestock, or the means to lab-grow meat? I can think of a few things that would make them give off that much horror, particularly if they've seen themselves as noble civilized people. Cannibalism, slavery, forced breeding for slavery or food. I'm sure you could imagine more atrocities than I can.::

::She felt amusement flowing over the top of his anger. Of course I can. The genetic experiments of Gungea the Cruel come to mind, but really, who wouldn't find it utterly hilarious to graft feet to the foreheads of slaves who displeased you? Anyway, they did have food. This was built to be self-sustaining. That said as skinny as they are, I don't think-::

A sudden booming voice screamed in their skull.

I AM BORED, SLAVES.

Around them there were cries of dismay, people grabbing their heads, falling to their knees.

He staggered slightly, the force of the psychic intrusion battering against his mind.

"What the kriffing...?" Ullan muttered, raising a hand to his face, then staring at the blood that painted it, streaming down from his nose.

Iocina grabbed his sleeve to keep from falling her own knees, I don't bow to anyone but you, her mental voice was a growl of fury. The hells is that thing?

She swiped her wrist beneath her own nose, blood soaking into the pale fabric.

A Twi'lek male next to her lay on the ground twitching, bleeding from the nose and ears. Another stared up into the air, either senseless or dying.

"It's not time!" Hattu protested. "We've made the sacrifices!"

"It's the Jedi!" another shouted. "It wants the Jedi!"

Ullan tapped his arm suddenly, energy field flaring to life just in time, the stun bolt flaring around his body.

Iocina did the same, barely half a second behind him. ::Would now be a good time to get un-meek?::

He answered with a blast of the Force that hurled the nearby bodies into the walls, an unrestrained display of power that smashed bones and crushed skulls.

NEW SLAVES HAVE COME.

He staggered again, but this time his shields were stronger. He had pulled back from their connection, leaving only the barest of tethers between them, as he did during his mechanical meditations.

The elevator slid to a stop. Skulls adorned the walkway ahead of them, and a phalanx of half-starved residents armed with primitive weapons stood ready, blocking the only path over a cavernous abyss.

He activated his lightsaber, waving it to deter them. He grabbed Hattu, the only one not caught in his Force wave, and leapt over the side, into the darkness.

As she dropped to follow him over Iocina snatched an antique looking vibro-sword from downed body, tucking it against her body with the blade pointed behind her. It wouldn't do to reach the bottom only land on the sharp end.

The unfinished saber at her belt was useless weight smacking her hip and thigh.

He guided his fall to a rocky outcropping.

YOU CANNOT HIDE FROM ME, SLAVES. YOUR LIGHT BURNS TOO BRIGHTLY.

"Kriff off, " Ullan grunted as he used the Force to slam Hattu against the wall. "Normally I would just rip what I need from your mind, but it's a little loud right now. What is that?"

Hattu cursed at him until his arm began to bend at a grotesque angle.

"It is the God Mind at the center of the universe!"

"That's a stellagraphically offensive notion given that it's not even at the center of this galaxy. Let me guess, you dug it up?"  
"No! It came here, the Mandalorians! They put it here!"

"Now that is interesting." Ullan glanced up. "But we must be going now. Hattu, are you a good slave?"

The man nodded frantically.

"I'll remember that later. Good night."

Ullan rapped Hattu's head against the wall, then began running along the narrow ledge. As he went, she could feel him purging his emotions, shutting down his feelings, almost as if he were flipping switches.

::I thought you said the Mandalorians didn't come dirt-down,:: she ran two steps behind him, drawing the forearm length vibroblade from the jury rigged sheath on the back of her belt to use as a shoto.

"No good," he said. He pulled something from his sleeve, an injector, and jammed it into her arm. He then turned it on himself.

She felt the Force pulling away.

"Good thing you had all that practice recently," he said.

A pair of residents scrambled toward them, shouting. He clubbed one off the ledge with his metal arm, then stabbed the other with his lightsaber. The movements were powerful but brutal, lacking his usual grace.

As he pulled his lightsaber free, another emerged from a crevice behind him, club poised to dash his brains out.

A thrust of her sword cut the legs from beneath the woman, a backhanded blow from the shoto cut her throat.

"Practice makes perfect," she said, without the ability to touch hermind he couldn't be sure if she meant working around the block or the killing.

She heard another biped running up behind her, side stepped and shoved her blade through his back. His momentum caused him to flop a few feet away where he lay there twitching and bleeding out.

He collected a club, a brutal-looking affair with spikes driven through it. "We need space to assess the situation. Follow me. Kill anyone we meet until we've had time to plan."

He lumbered forward, deprived of his usual assured grace. He watched his footing carefully as he followed the ledge down.

She flicked the sword to one side, blood spraying off it, then followed. Her steps were only marginally graceful than his but she was lighter and much smaller feet, making the ledge less hazardous.

He glanced to the side, then suddenly ducked into another crack in the wall, pulling her behind him.

There was barely enough room for the two of them, but it served as concealment. Scant moments later, a party of natives thundered by, yelling in anger and confusion.

"It's talking to them," he said, a small note of triumph in his voice. "I don't hear it. Do you?"

"No," she whispered, "what sort of creature could do this, if its anything living at all."

"No idea. There are strange things out here on the rim. I can believe the Mandies chased something here. We thought they cordoned it for later conquest, but they did it for containment..."

He swore softly. "Couldn't capture anybody to interrogate on the subject, there was a war on. Revan saw things out here, things he didn't even tell Malak about. Whatever this is, it ties into the existing Force capacity. That's why it hit us so hard, and why I had to take it away."

He shifted slightly, his lightsaber digging into her hip. "The Force is our weapon, not our ally. If we don't have one weapon, we use another. We use rocks and our kriffing teeth if we have to. Fortunately, you're acquainted with that now."

"I'm definitely well acquainted with rocks master," she said, "I can't believe we didn't sense this from orbit."

She tilted her head to the side, "I think they've passed."

He shook his head. "Even after it started talking, I couldn't sense it. I have no idea what it is, but it's sitting on my world and ruling my people, so it's got to die. Or else accept a change in management."

He squirmed past her, glanced outside and nodded. "Time to go back the way we came, then. Well, not entirely, but close enough. How well did you do in free climbing at the academy?"

"Better than most. I don't know if you've noticed, what with how easy it was for you to manipulate me and how easy my shields went down, I am a bit better with some physical things than mental ones. Of course compared to you Master, I'm nothing like a skilled duellist," she replaced the dagger in its sheath and thrust the sword through her belt, "I hope some of these bleaters survives or we'll have to import some from somewhere else."

"There were several thousand of them here, this was a pretty populous outpost. But kriff knows how many have survived this long, what with alien demon god Force beast toying with them. Hopefully enough to get my production going, because subsidizing a raid would be a pain."

He looked thoughtful for a moment. "Though I do have a pirate fleet on tap..."

He began climbing up the wall, moving with care, finding his handholds, using his metal hand to break out new ones where needed.

She followed behind, just far enough to avoid most of the falling debris. She used the handholds he'd carved out as well as what she'd found herself. A warm trickle of blood dripped into the corner of her mouth when a falling stone cut open a line down her cheek.

He reached back to the ground level, crouching low. He'd pulled his hood up and blended well in the gloom.

"Most of the light arrays are down," he whispered. "This facility had a Czerka Thermo 329 reactor. Should be enough to power a settlement twice this size, for planned expansion. So either the maintenance is worthless, or..."

"It could be an ambush, it could also just need the darkness to thrive."

"Could also be a large power drain. Whatever, it's data, an aberration. Next thing to do is collect another prisoner and ask some more leisurely questions than we got with good old Hattu."

He stopped, stared at his flesh hand. "It's amazing how the Force blinds you to simpler sensations. Our brains can only process so much data. I feel my heart beating, feel the shock of adrenaline dumping back down. Things I never notice otherwise. Also my knee hurts like hell and I probably need to get the slave to do a full rebuild on it when we get back. "

"You did mess it up fairly badly on Vilargo," she said, pulling her sword free carefully to keep from cutting through her belt, "When I first woke up strapped to a bed on Dantooine it was the weirdest combination of awareness of sensory deprivation. It takes days to get used to it."

He shrugged. "Bodies are for using. And enjoying. Still, I'm going to kill this thing slowly for making me blind myself. Now, let's go find a native to talk to. Ideally one we can force ourselves on later."

He began creeping toward the settlement.

Iocina wasn't sure it would be easy to find someone who fit all the criteria her master would prefer, compliant, young, female, reasonable attractive, but they'd probably find one that fit at least two or three.

She lay her sword back along her body, concealing its length and the betraying shadow it might make in the uncertain light.

The settlement was large, but a great many homes looked abandoned, windows smashed out, doors hanging open. A body lay rotting in the street, Ullan crouched in the alley, studying it from the shadows. "Hard to say when it's gotten so mushy, but I'm guessing he met his final end from a club to the head. Though the stabbing must have been greatly discouraging to any plans he had for the future."

"One of them mentioned making sacrifices when we got here," she peered up and down the street, looking for buildings that looked occupied. Just like Vilargo all the buildings had been assembled from prefabricated pieces, but even Vilargo hadn't looked this bad.

"I wonder if a sacrifice to this thing would be random senseless violence or actually taking people to it as an offering of some kind," she swiped at her cut cheek, "how many of the original settlers survived? I seriously doubt there are six-thousand people here. Even a place like this beings tend to breed, but who knows how many of these folks have gone for kriffin' sacrifices"

He nodded. "This isn't six thousand people worth of occupancy. Although," he produced a pair of electrobinoculars from his cloak and studied the opposite side of the chasm, across the bridge that met the elevator.

"Tent city on the other side. Those are the mining tunnels. Prone to gas ruptures, one reason Czerka staffed this rock up so heavily. It's moved population over there. And, aha, power cables. A lot of power cables."

He handed her the electrobinoculars to take a look for herself. "Something over there is consuming the life of this settlement, in a variety of ways."

"This had better not be another force-forsaken construct out to eat us," she said, handing them back. "I wonder how long its been this bad, and if its been like this for ten years it would have to be keeping some of them alive. If no one's around to keep the generators up and running, or maybe even keep breeding new slaves for it, it would probably die. How many people does it need to do all that and keep a healthy breeding stock? I counted mostly humans, and we're at the top of the chart for humanoid birth rate."

He nodded, then slid up and began moving again. "Enough conjecture, time to get some answers."

He crept from alley to alley, shadow to shadow. Suddenly he froze, as a band of residents marched by, weapons in hand and looking around suspiciously.

As they finished passing, Iocina felt a tug on her ankle.

A gaunt woman looked up at her from an opening in the ground that hadn't been there before, and beckoned.

Iocina looked at Ullan and shrugged, gesturing towards the woman, "Well, this isn't something I expected," she whispered, "one came to us instead of the other way around."

She followed the woman down, mindful of a trap, and waited for her master to follow.

The tunnel was rough-hewn, but cut and expertly shored up as one would expect from a mining colony. Bioluminescent fungus had been spored into the wall, creating a wan glow.

"Jedi," she said. "Please come this way."

With the pale green light on the woman's face she could see that her hair was dark blonde, nearly brown; she might have been pretty once but hunger had made her cheeks sunken and eyes huge in her thin face.

Iocina slipped back to settled behind Ullan, "Master, what do you think?"

"Jedi," he said. "Yes, that is us. We are Jedi. Lead on, we are here to help you."

He slipped ahead of Iocina, club in one hand, lightsaber close to the other. "What is your name?"

"Zamfra Tel-Ossin," she said. "Formerly corporate security, before it came."

"Ah. What is 'it'?"

"We don't know," she said as she led them further down the tunnel.

After a moment he gestured a hand at her back in a 'well, continue talking' motion, but she remained silent.

"So what do you know about it?" he finally asked her.

"It came. It began speaking to some, ignoring others. Those it spoke to began killing the rest of us. Some of us hide down here," she said.

"I can see the keen insight and discerning curiosity at work that has made Czerka security known throughout the galaxy as an example of institutional efficiency and competence."

"Do you know how many of you are left on the surface and how many down here? A rough count is acceptable if you have no exact numbers," she asked, making her voice as gentle as possible. It was the same tone she used on Zyro when she was playing kind.

The woman shook her head, "We can't be sure," she said, "Possibly two thousand above and one thousand down here. There are some above who are kept prisoner as sacrifices, but there's never been a count of them. When they raid we have no way of knowing who they kill and who they take."

"Now we're getting somewhere," he said. "Do you have any idea where they take these sacrifices?"

"To the shafts."

"Pass the tent city across the way?"

She nodded.

She led them into a chamber cut into the rock. A pair of children looked up warily from their toys, their expressions bleak.

"Oh," he said. "Children. Ah. Very good that you're still breeding."

Iocina asked, "Yours? It must be heart wrenching to watch children grow in a place like this."

She shook her head. "Their parents were taken in a raid, so I moved in with them."

"Well as my padawan said, tragic and so on. So do you have any leadership we can discuss the situation with?"

She shrugged. "Not really, not anymore. When Venka got taken, everyone just sort of fell to doing their own thing. Scrounging for food, trying not to be caught. When we tried to fight back, they came down hard. Now, they just sort of leave us alone except for the occasional raid."

He nodded. "Seems then that it's time to start the revolution up again."

"Do you have any weapons at all?" she asked, "I'm sure its too much to ask if you still have any of the mining explosives left behind when the operation was shut down."

The woman blinked at her, "Yes, we have weapons," she said, "But since we're scattered here no one drills in the use of them as a fighting force. One man fighting alone is practically useless, but people fear if they gather together they'll be more of a target."

"I'm the last of the security force, or I'd have tried to rally people. I'm sure you've seen this sort of thing, with the Mandalorians doing their best to raze half the outer rim. People fall apart, hide, avoid conflict."

"And the explosives?" Iocina prodded.

"Yes, but few of us down here know how to use them. I can use mines but not the big charges the miners used. Most of us here were support staff, not miners.”

"That's okay," he said. "We know explosives. Or at least I do."

He reached out to grasp the woman's arm. "Don't worry, we are Jedi and we will protect you from the this danger."

She looked down at his hand. "Please don't touch me."

He smiled at her but did not release his grip. "Don't be afraid. Now, where can we get some explosives? Blasters would also be good."

"I'll show you."

"You children, can you spread the word? The Jedi are here to save you."

The older one, possibly a boy, nodded.

"Good. Lead on, Zamfra."

Behind his back Iocina smiled as the woman turned away, the woman had frozen at Ullan's touch the way a small prey animal went still at the approach of a predator. Such creatures either found the courage to run, fought back, or died. Which one was Zamfra?

The two children went down opposite tunnels, their movements quick but abbreviated. They'd never had the opportunity to run in the open air, so their stride was short.

It was a warren down here, but the woman moved unerringly along the paths. As a defense mechanism it was sound, if they'd bothered to practice as a unit they could have hunted the hunters very efficiently. All it would have taken was one to play bait and lead their followers into a dead end ambush.

She reached up and rattled a chain that had been hidden in a small notch in the rock.

"Atugo," she whispered loudly. "Atugo. It's Zamfa. I found the Jedi."

Moments later, a man appeared, holding a makeshift spear. "Come quickly," he said. "There's another raiding party coming down. They've already gotten the Markas family."

"Raiding party?" Ullan said. "Where?"

"Coming from the entrance below what used to be an infirmary near the opening to the main shaft," he said.

"Dear gods the children," Zamfra said, "We have to go back and find them!"

"Peace," said Iocina, "they're small and quick. If you go after them now you could lead the raiders straight to them. I'm sure they're clever enough to hide themselves somewhere small."

"Children adapt to these things better than adults," he said. "Now what we need is a place to get ahead of them on their return. Do they usually go out the way they came in?"

"Usually," Zamfra said.

"Good. They're stupid and we won't give them time to get smart. We're going to ambush them on the way back, free anyone they capture, and start a revolution. Are the two of you with me?"

The pair of citizens looked at each other dubiously. "I told you what happens when we organize," Zamfra said.

"You didn't have Jedi on your side before," Ullan said. "We'll do this alone if we have to, but better you do this under our guidance."

Atugo nodded slowly. "I have my blaster..."

"Good man. Zamfra, we don't have a lot of time."

She nodded slowly, then started back up the tunnel, taking a quick switchback.

She pulled her shoto from the back of her belt and transferred the sword to a front handed grip. Curiously she flipped the switch on the long sword that should have created ultrasonic vibrations to cover the blade. She was surprised it still worked, she'd been using it merely as normal blade till now but the charge seemed to be sufficient.

They passed hastily erected barricades of junk, not enough to stop an attacker but perhaps enough to slow one down. The remains of similar barriers, now smashed to pieces littered the ground. Zamfra and her companion avoided these with ease, knowing where each dangerous pile of debris was.

The path began to steadily rise as they approached the exit above ground. There was a ladder here, and an old decrepit lift that had been purposely jammed to keep anyone from using it to bring an entire force down at once.

So stupid, she thought, with the ladder only big enough for one to descend at a time they could have waited at the bend and picked them off at their leisure. Pathetic, these people are as intelligent as herd animals.

That was the thing though, one person can be clever and use their brains to work through a problem. A group of panicked people lost half their IQ in a matter of minutes.

He gestured toward a spot behind a pile of debris. "You and Atugo," he told Iocina.

He smiled at Zamfra. "We've got this spot." He handed her the club. "When they come, you hit them with the spiky end."  
"I know how to hit people," she said.

"Very good. Life-affirming skill."

He settled down behind what had once been a desk, poised in a crouch.

They waited, and waited, and waited. Finally, heralded by victorious cries and crying pleas, the raiders made their way back down the tunnel. They rounded the curve, bringing back a pair of battered men, shacked and blindfolded.

These raiders looked different than the crowd that had greeted them up above- half-naked, their bodies marked and pierced with bits of metal and strange glyphs. Their chatter was loud and in some foreign dialect.

As they passed his desk, Ullan activated his lightsaber and took one man down by slicing through his legs at ankle height. "Don't kill him!" he ordered as he rose, beheading another with a dramatic slash of red.

Iocina was on another in an instant, sword slashing diagonally down the man's back sending him staggering. When he'd recovered his balance enough to turn and raise his glass studded club she sliced the blade across his forearm and then shoved the dagger through his throat. The club clattered to the floor as he fell choking on his own blood.

The woman next to him gave a strangled war cry, eyes wide and senseless as she lunged across the barrier. Atugo shot her in the belly, a remarkably savage look on his face. He could have easily gotten a headshot at this distance, but he wanted his enemy to suffer.

Between Ullan and Iocina, the raiders fell in short order, as the two former Jedi employed their extensive training and battle experience against their hapless foes.

Ullan stepped in the path of one of the men they'd kidnapped. "No running," he said. "Not anymore."

He flicked the tip of his lightsaber toward the wounded raider on the floor. "Padawan, talk to our new friend."

Iocina moved to roll the woman over, her hands were pressed tight over her stomach and sweat rolled down her filthy face. Judging from the location of the wound, she could live for at least a few hours before dying. If it had been a stabbing wound it would be another story, but the blaster bolt had cauterized veins as it went through.

She had to remember they were supposed to be Jedi, who definitely didn't torture helpless prisoners for information, "Now, please tell us what we want to know. We only want to help your planet, if you can understand me please know that we mean you no harm"

She rolled her eyes out of view of the others, "Where were you taking these men? What is the thing you serve?"

"It is a god," she said. "It speaks to us in our minds."

She looked up at Iocina. "Without sacrifices, it will eat my soul when I die."

"What is the process of sacrifice?" Ullan asked. "How do you kill them?"

"They fight each other, to the death."

"That's... terrible," he said. "We must end this barbaric practice. Carry on, padawan."

"Where is this god?" she asked, "Does it have a physical form, or is it only a voice?"

Behind her Zamfra and Atugo were unbinding the men who'd been taking prisoner.

"I have not been in its glorious presence, but there are those who have been," the woman said, "It dwells in the darkest of the dark places, where it hoards the souls of the dead to consume at its leisure." Her voice was strained but there was absolute reverence and fear in her voice, almost the same tone Alianne had when professing her obedience to Ullan.

He leaned down. "Give me names. Who has been in the presence? Where can we find them?"

"Reylus," she said. "Reylus, Nept, and Gorule. They live in the hive."

He looked up at Zamfra. "Do you know them?"

"Reylus was my superior in corpsec," she said. "Gorule was the dock master. Don't know Nept."

"The hive is across the bridge?"

The woman surged up suddenly, speaking some sort of bizarre alien cant, struggling against Iocina's grip.

"Guess it doesn't want her to talk to us anymore," he said. "Also it knows where we're at, so we'd best be moving. I'll get the others moving. Padawan, make this poor woman comfortable as best you can, then catch up."

His look told her what sort of comfort she was expected to dispense. He ushered the others back down the tunnel.

As soon as the others were out of sight, and hopefully hearing, I Iocina wrenched the woman around and straddled her, one hand clamping over her mouth. She slid the vibroblade into the wound on her stomach, causing a fresh gout of blood. She was careful to get none of it on herself, slowly dragging the blade up. The woman seized, gasping and beyond even screaming against her hand. With a deeper thrust she moved the blade under the ribcage to the heart.

Sighing, Iocina stood before the pooling blood could stain the knees of her robe and used her water bottle to rinse her hands. She caught up, hoping the others wouldn't notice her flushed face. She met Ullan's eyes, face still solemn.

 

 

He gave her a small wink before he pushed them past one interchange and gestured. "These tunnels belong to me now," he told them. "And this is where you're going to make your stand. Atugo, I need you to get everyone you can. Tell them the Jedi are here and we will take care of this problem. You just need to hold on until we're through."

He seized Atugo's shoulder. "None of them pass here, you understand? This is your line, to the last man. This ends today."

The man's eyes lit with a fire of hope, he rested his hand atop Ullan's and nodded. "We're with you Master Jedi," he said, voice firm. He straightened his spine and strode away with purpose. Iocina had no doubt he'd be able to rally every able bodied fighter he could find.

"My Master is wise, obey his orders and you'll be free from this false god," she said, sounding utterly confident. Of course after they were free from the thing across the bridge, they'd all be obeying Ullan's commands instead. Perhaps they'd even kneel at his feet without any coaxing at all, they'd already been beaten down to submission for years.

Ullan winked at her again. "Well, we're going to go kill a god now. Stand fast, make your hearts firm, and a thousand foes cannot defeat you." He struck a heroic pose, gave a final wave, then trotted away.

He started out down the side tunnel, back the way they came.

"They are so dead," he muttered to Iocina. "Hopefully that will clear out the last of anybody with any sort of revolutionary spark. Now to go meet the competition."

"They're mostly just bodies between us and the raiders," she said, frowning at the blood under her nails, "Whatever this thing is it won't be nearly so heroic and dashing as you, I'm sure," she said, "I just hope it isn't something slimy, twenty feet tall, and covered in tentacles."

"Once we've liberated these people they might start to worship you, they're already nice and broken in. Might want to clean them up a bit though, looks bad for company."

He chuckled. "How far you've come. They are pretty beaten down. Anyway, I do have images of the people we're looking for. So while they're busy sending bodies over to deal with this little uprising, we'll slip back across, find somebody to talk to, then walk in and meet our new friend. Who may be slimy, twenty feet tall, and covered with tentacles. But some species are just that way, you know."

He slipped out of the tunnel and back to the streets, held up a hand as a group of raiders came thundering past in the light, pepping themselves up with war cries and waving their clubs.

Iocina trotted along behind him, keeping to the deep pools of shadows between the dim lights. "I'd always wondered what Vandar meant when he said some places were 'dark side worlds', but I'm pretty sure this counts."

They kept clear of three more raiding parties, each one a larger force than the last, "I wonder if they have some way to communicate through that thing, knowing that the people we left to fight back there are amassing against them?"

"Have to assume they do, especially with how fast they responded. The linkage with us was two-way, so assume it's tapping variant levels of Force sensitivity. It's an interesting distinction- a regular Force sensitive can communicate with somebody who is blocked, just as I was able to pluck thoughts out of your puny little brain at will. But when we went offline, it became blind to us. That's rather abnormal, but whatever this is, it's fairly alien even by our standards."

They crept to the edge of the bridge. "Those power lines are shielded and fairly substantial," he whispered. "We wait until they aren't looking, then we hand-over-hand underneath the bridge, go across, perhaps kill a sentry or two, then penetrate further in."

She looked over the edge and along the lines, making out the best route along it, sheathing her weapons she shook her hands out, "Here's to hoping its literally blind to us, I'd like to walk up and stab it to death before it even reacts. Of course any of its worshippers might strenuously object, but we can handle that too."

"I hope they do," he said. "Just not in great numbers."

With that, he slipped down the side and grabbed the line, dangling over the chasm. He began shifting hand to hand, the line wobbling under his weight but holding firm.

It hummed under her hand when she began crossing, carrying who knew what amount of sheer power. Given that the other side was no better lit up than the city, what was draining so much power over there?

As they crossed in silence, more feet pounded across the bridge. Behind them, they could hear the occasional scream or burst of blasterfire echoing through the caverns- Atugo and Zamfra were selling their lives dearly, it would seem, and the diversion was working masterfully.

He pulled himself up on the other side, staying low. There were indeed a pair of sentries, and he gestured to her in some sort of hand code she didn't understand, likely something from his time fighting the Mandalorians. After a moment he realized that he was failing to communicate and fell back on the universal throat-slicing gesture, designating one of the sentries for her. He counted down with his fingers, three, two, one, then lunged forward. Having no weapon beyond his lightsaber, he simply opted to grab his sentry by the shoulder and club downward with his metal arm, smashing the hapless man's skull.

Iocina shoved the tip of her vibroblade just behind the other sentry's ear, slipping between the joint of his jaw and the rest of his skull and into his brain. He died silently, wetting her hand and sleeve with red blood. She shoved him off the short blade, a soft grinding sound of metal against bone.

She nodded, and fell in step once more. How far I've come indeed, she thought.

He slipped her something in the dark. "This might come in handy," he whispered. The round metal object was quite distinctive, she'd handled blanks in training but never the real thing- a thermal detonator.

"Now, we slip quietly along the edge of the tents there, then proceed in through that shaft- according to Zamfra, that used to be the main supervisor's office area. Likely that's where whatever authority figures it allows them will lair up."

He quickly pushed the bodies over the chasm, then proceeded on the way.

The camp was curiously quiet, unlike the noisome raiders who had departed earlier. The glimpses they saw of people seemed to be largely still, despondent-looking. Quiet sobbing could be heard.

"Listen to them suffer," he whispered. "Damn that thing, I'd love to taste all this despair..."

She let out a soft shuddering breath, "I think you're bad for my character Master, because I agree."

She pulled her hood up over her face, "Lets go negotiate like good Jedi."

He snorted. "I think I made some improvements, once I knocked the silly walls down and put in the nice Garden of Delightful Suffering."

They crept up on the office. A dim light lit the interior, where a sobbing man prostrated himself on the floor, murmuring apologies to a voice only he could hear.

"They were beaten, master. It was the Jedi! The Jedi! But we're fighting them now! We will bring you more sacrifices! Please master! Do not send me to the pit!"

"Speaking of the Jedi," Ullan said, stepping across the threshold. "Take me to your master, please. We have much to discuss. Peacefully, of course."

He ignited his lightsaber, putting some lie to his words.

The man looked up, his eyes crazed. He stared at Ullan for a moment, then spat out a single, angry word. "SITH!"

He charged forward, hands extended, fingers curled into claws. Ullan sidestepped him and chopped both hands off, well above the wrists.

"Tch," he muttered as the man went down, staring at his arms in horror. "So crude without the fine guidance. I meant to take them off a bit further down."

He held the lightsaber below the man's chin. "I take it your god knows what I am, then. Listen to me and listen carefully, because the next mission that comes after me comes with enough weaponry to crack this planet open. I want to talk. I quite admire your work."

Iocina didn't bother to hide her grin as the smell of urine filled the room. The man lay in a spreading puddle, still staring at his hands. She nudged him with her boot, "Answer now," she said, putting a note of boredom into her voice.

The man shook his head violently back and forth, straggling blond hair whipping around his face. "The Master will eat my soul, I won't reach paradise!"

"If you don't answer, I will eat your soul and you will likewise never see paradise. Also, I will emasculate you beforehand."

He whimpered as the lightsaber danced around his face.

"I'm cut off from the Force," he said "so I don't have the fine control I usually do. Best to answer me soon."

The man's eyes suddenly rolled back up into his head.

YOU ARE NO SITH.

Ullan killed his lightsaber. "Okay, make up your mind."

YOU ARE NO SITH.

We heard you the first time. Now, can we meet?

FOLLOW MY SERVANT...

"Let's..." he said, catching Iocina's eye.

"go," she finished. She stepped back to let the mind-controlled man get off the floor. He struggled, trying to get purchase with hands that were no longer there. He didn't even seem to be registering the pain now which was interesting, but they didn't have time to watch him flop around. She grabbed the front of his shirt and dragged him to his knees so he could stand. She gave him a small push toward the door and he began to walk.

That was a bit creepy, his eyes were still rolled back and only the whites showed. As she watched veins burst across them, yellow and red streaks polluting the sclera. Still, he walked unerringly forward, even avoiding a few obstacles in his way.

Ullan rolled his eyes at Iocina and mouthed the word 'trap'.

"By the way," he said...

He tossed his thermal detonator back into the office, then grabbed the man and began running forward.

"We don't want any of your people coming back too soon. Now let's talk, or else we start smashing these tunnels down around you. We have enough charges to do the job!"

The office blew out in a massive explosion, bringing a small avalanche down into the entrance of the cavern.

I WILL KILL YOU!

"You're going to have to do it in person," Ullan said. "Let's talk. There may be a way to resolve this to our mutual benefit."

"Somehow I don't think torture is going to help," she said, shoving a finger into the stump at the end of his arm. He didn't react in the slightest, which was distinctly unsatisfying.

He nodded.

"So do we keep blowing up tunnels? We may not be your definition of Sith, but we are entirely ruthless about these things. If nothing else, you've just lost a lot of whatever power you were sucking down here."

COME TO YOUR DEATHS. FOLLOW THE SLAVE.

"That sounds promising."

"After you, slave," she muttered, shoving the wounded man ahead of her. "At least if there's an explosive mine we can't see it will get him first."

The mindless shell shuffled along, steps unsteady. No matter what supernatural force was keeping him moving the body was still wounded. If his wounds hadn't been flash cauterized by the lightsaber he'd have already bled out, but he'd probably be well into shock by now. She doubted he'd live more than a moment after they reached their destination.

More slaves gathered along the walls, chanting softly ahead of them.

"Say, this reminds me of that funny time on Nilocea with Plozin," he said lightly. He strolled up and shoved his lightsaber through one chanting slave's ear and into the next one. Both fell to the ground without a sound, not interrupting the chanting from any of the others.

"Damn, but I must admire the style," he lamented.

"Maybe we'll get lucky and these will stay the way they are, their brains have to be complete mush by now," she said, running the very tip of her sword down the line of nude slaves. She looked like an initiate dragging a stick along the outside walls of the temple, with nearly the same expression on her face. The slaves ignored both the bleeding wounds and electrostatic shocks, not even a change in their breathing.

"If all else fails and we need to bring more workers in we can give them these as an incentive package or something."

"Oh, we'll be bringing in more," he said. "Pirate fleet, remember? We're going to need more than these raggedy survivors."

He glanced at the tottering slave leading them along. "Of course, we would much rather negotiate something that benefits us both."

The slave whirled.

STOP. YOU WILL GO NO FURTHER.

The lights flickered as he spoke. Ullan glanced at the wall, then slashed his lightsaber through a power cable.

"How much more can you take?" he asked.

STOP. YOU ARE NOT SITH.

"Semantics aside, I am the one standing on your power supply. How much more can you take?"

PROCEED FORWARD.

The slave was listing badly now, barely able to stagger along.

Iocina had to shove her wrist into her mouth to keep from laughing aloud, then grimaced as she tasted blood. "I wonder if it realizes if we kill everyone the generators will eventually fail? No more sacrifices, and no more energy."

"I'm also curious as to what all the power is needed for," he said. "Hopefully something spectacularly useful."

They entered a new chamber, the lights flickering. A massive alien droid was welded to the wall, towering meters into the air. Easily the size of a small starship, and elements of a starship could still be seen attached to it, thrust nozzles and other components. However, it had melded itself into a massive network of power lines and Czerka-labeled machinery.

The slave stopped suddenly and Ullan shoved him forward. The slave bounced off a force shield, electricity arcing across his body. He went down, smoke pouring from his mouth and ears.

"Okay. Not what I was expecting."

She raised an eyebrow, "Is this it, or is it inside there? Please tell me this isn't some kind of Force sensitive A.I. because I've seen this holo."

"What holo was that?" he said. "It's not Force sensitive as such..."

He dragged his lightsaber along the shield, sparking a light of fire across it.

YOU ARE NOT SITH.

"Then what are we?"

YOU ARE DEBASED. YOU ARE FLAWED.

"I'm the one standing on your lifeline," he said. "That makes me the power here. You can recognize that or die."

WE DO NOT SURRENDER TO PRETENDERS.

Poetic, but answers the question.

Ullan marched toward the power lines when the field suddenly dropped.

The smoldering body, still twitching in the field, shifted into the now open area as the energy dissipated. Iocina didn't quite understand what was going on, but her curiosity was piqued. Sith, not Sith, pretenders. Hm Its a good thing Master seems to know what's going on, or he's bluffing. I think half the time he lies just to keep in practice.

He strode forward boldly. "So can we talk now."

THERE IS NO NEGOTIATION WITH THE INFERIOR.

"Agre-" he started to say, when a wave of droids erupted from the bowels of the tunnels. None were armed with blasters, but many had mining implements, clubs, or jury-rigged weaponry. Several simply clanked forward waving their metal limbs.

"Iocina..." he said "now would be a good time."

"Well then, we'll just be going now Master?" she asked.

"Actually I was thinking throw the gr... yes," he said, recalling the old code phrase. "Yes. We'll be going."

"That sounds about right," she flipped the switch only a few centimeters, giving it mere seconds to detonation and tossed the thing in the proper direction. "We killing the rest or making a tactical retreat?"

He swirled his lightsaber. "We're Sith. We attack."

The thermal detonator erupted in a wave, enveloping the droids in the rearmost ranks. He turned, raising his armored arm as the wave swept over them, his robe catching fire from the blast heat. He ignored the blaze long enough to slash through the nearest droid, then shucked the robe, hurling it aside in time to narrowly dodge a swinging sawblade.

Normally the droids would be no match for them, even en masse. But with their abilities blinded, sheer numbers were going to make the conflict rather more difficult.

"I hoped you'd say that Master," she slipped out of her robe as soon as she saw his ignite, flinging it over the head of the nearest enemy and blinding its photoreceptors. Without a lightsaber Iocina felt rather handicapped, she'd killed many actual battle droids on Vilargo with nothing but grit and stones but now she was doubly disadvantaged. She shoved her frustration into real anger spun into the fray.

At least these don't have kriffin' shields, she thought aiming to disable rather than destroy. There was less scope for dismemberment with a vibroblade, so she was relegated to slicing through motivators and the odd exposed power pack on the less well made droids.

The mining droids were the most difficult, armored to withstand at least minor cave-ins she had to slide beneath one of them and cut through a network of exposed cables and get away through the other side before they collapsed on top of her.

He smashed a protocol droid's head with a blow from his fist, then whirled toward the droid on the wall, breathing heavily from the exertion and visibly limping from his damaged knee.

"There is no negotiation with the inferior," he said. He marched slowly toward the droid, lightsaber trailing on the ground behind him, scoring a sizzling line in the deck.

YOU ARE NOT SITH.  
He stabbed a portion of the droid. "I say that I am. We can have a ridiculous argument all night, you can submit, or I can deactivate you."

"WE WILL NEGOTIATE!"

"No."

He carved a vestigial limb off. "How many more pieces until I hit something crucial?"

Iocina rose from a crouch, electricity trickling over her hand. The old vibrosword was beginning to fail, the shield on the handgrip flicking on and off. Energy bled off of the blade, coating her hand and wrist in sparks. She kicked the head of the droid she'd just ended and stalked back to her master's side.

He played his lightsaber along the wall. "I am the master here. Acknowledge me, droid. Sith Lord Ullan, your master."

Lights blinked along the droid's surface as it processed the command.

THE SITH LORD ULLAN IS MY MASTER.

"That's what I wanted to hear," Ullan said. "Command your slaves to assemble in the city and smash any remaining resistance to my rule. Inform them they are to serve me now."

She could see that Ullan was not relaxing. He looked more tired than she'd ever seen him, the pain that coursed through his body every minute of every day completely unblunted by the Force. He was standing by sheer will.

"At the first hint of treachery, I will obliterate your power supply," he said. "And then I will come in here and slowly carve you to pieces."

UNDERSTOOD. MASTER ULLAN.

He deactivated his lightsaber and kicked a droid head out of his way as he turned back, his face ashen gray. "Going to be a long kriffing week," he muttered.

"Need me to snatch Zyro from the ship," she asked, "Or just grab some equipment? I can use most of it."

"No weakness," he muttered. "I'll make it. We need to finish this and inform the surviving population who they belong to. Are you functional?"

She had to think about it, her own knee wasn't one hundred percent, similarly both shoulders felt weak. Mostly she had bruises that felt as deep as her bones and it felt like at least three left side ribs were cracked as she took a deep breath. She idly thumbed the switch to turn off the blade, energy prickling in her arm fading away. "I think I'm intact," she said, "Pretty sure they put me in a kolto tank on Dantooine so I'm ahead of you as far as that goes."

He shrugged. "I'm thinking a hot bath and some tending from attractive slaves, a little scented oil and some depraved sexual activity, all will be better. See, you must always incentivize your activities, it gives you a reason to get through the day."

He suddenly slashed a random power line. "Think you can make it without this one," he said nonchalantly. The droid whined at their backs as he limped back down. "Hm. Normally I'd use the Force to select an exit, but now we'll just have to see. Going from what entrances there were on the ground... left, I think."

"Just thinking about the way Zyro is going to come crying to me that Alianne was mean to her is motivating. After she's done patching you up I'll borrow her for a bit if you don't mind?"

Down the hallway he'd chosen were more nude slaves, now on their knees. As they passed the slaves just preceding Ullan bowed forward, arms outstretched on the ground in supplication.

"That's even better," she said. As they drew closer to the tent city she could hear shouted commands and scrambling feet.

He nodded. "You can. If this thing is tied to anything Sith, it's already planning treachery. We'll need to move to minimize it, isolate it and take control of this facility completely. Power supplies first, we're going to rig them for remote detonation. Any functional humanoids need to be broken to the new state of affairs. Then we get patched up and move on to the next step, which will be figuring out just what we've captured here and how to use it best."

"Shall I descend below and tell whatever's left our dear friends they've been liberated so they'll show me where the explosives are," she suggested, "I'm sure they've noticed their enemies have retreated or laid down arms or whatever the machine told them to do."

"Ah, about that," he said. "They're actually being beaten to death down there. But I have a good idea of where they're kept."

He walked across the bridge. "Rails. Why do these things never have rails?"

"Probably for the best, I'd have caved in the tunnels when I left anyway," she flipped her sword around her hand, "Because Czerka has lousy accident insurance and no death insurance at all?"

"We're going to isolate the system," he said quietly. "Removal with droids, transport to safe location, and then repopulate the facility with a fresh batch of slaves. So now we know what we'll be doing next."

He stood at the edge of the bridge and looked down. "We just conquered a world, Worm. Just the two of us. Not bad."

"I'm fairly certain that this is where I'm supposed to have one final attack of conscience and try to throw you off this bridge or something," she drawled.

"Its just too bad I'm perfectly happy to have done this at your side."

"If I thought you had a conscience left I would've thrown you off the bridge on the way over," he said. "Come on, let's finish this."

The march back to town was heralded by a final few screams from the last remaining survivors in the tunnels under the settlement. Perhaps a few scattered survivors remained, but the slaves of the dark side droid had never been fully unleashed on the tunnels, only interested in taking more slaves for sacrifice.

He continued on, stopping at the tunnel entrance, then dropped down carefully inside. Violent, gibbering slaves gave him a wide berth as he marched down the tunnels, stepping over Zamfra's battered corpse on his way to a wall panel. He slid it open and began extracting blasting charges. He tossed one to Iocina without warning.

She caught it, barely, and growled softly under her breath. "Where are the best locations to set these?"

"Right at the power plant. Until it figures out alternate arrangements that's its chief vulnerability."

He limped back through the tunnels and battled up the ladder. Once the charges were set, he sealed off the the power plant altogether and began to stagger his way toward the ship. He quietly sang a tune she would recognize as Twi'lek , a bawdy piece of misadventure about a straying lover who found himself lost in the burning sands.

She was gratified to find the ship in one piece, "At least they didn't blast it out of spite," she muttered.

There were, however, a few bodies scattered around the ramp and one at the top of it. All bore blaster wounds and she smiled, "Bronus or Alianne do you think?"

"Bronus. I haven't gotten around to teaching Alianne how to shoot. Also the ship has an autodefense grid that I've tinkered up, but..." he pointed "that headshot says she got into the mix."

He tapped the key code in and opened the ramp, throwing clothes off onto the flight deck as he proceeded up. "Slaves," he said, his voice worn and ragged. "We need food, drink, and medical attention. Move!"

Bronus and Alianne promptly disappeared into the galley as she and Ullan passed, amd Zyro followed them meekly into the medical bay. Iocina thought the doctor looked particularly cowed, her lower lip was cut and swollen, and hand shaped bruises decorated her arms.

"Master," she said shakily, "please sit and allow your slave to tend you." She began arranging equipment on the fold out table, hands much steadier than her voice.

He flopped down on the bed, then reached over to tap into the ship's system and begin a replay of the external sensor feeds for the time they were out of the craft.

"Go ahead and get me fixed up," he said wearily. "Your master and apprentice master just conquered a kriffing world and defeated some sort of grand menace from beyond the Rim. Which the apprentice assures me she's seen in a holo before."

"Oh," she said, "well, it wasn't slimy or twenty feet tall I suppose if you squinted all the wires and power cables could be mistaken for tentacles."

Zyro got to work while Iocina once more set up the regenerator, this time for her master's knee.

"I would hate to think I was participating in an uncreative, derivative work."

He leaned up to look at Iocina. "How many books did Rens allow you to read? That weren't assigned reading?"

"Not many," she said, sounding disgusted, "and Vrook discouraged any extracurricular reading. Anything I did read Yuld insisted on reading it first, and Vrook didn't even give me a choice. Hivvis told me it wasn't like that when he was a Padawan, they didn't restrict any books unless they were forbidden to anyone below Master."

"It's the most natural instinct of power to restrict information, it's also the greatest driver of rebellion. Think about how often my habit of only giving you a piece of the plan has led to dangerous and frustrating circumstances."

He hissed as Zyro ran the sealer along his arm. "Kriffing hell that hurts," he snapped suddenly. She froze, having never seen him react so strongly to a treatment.

"I didn't tell you to stop, slave!" he said, drawing a flinch before she resumed her work.

"As," he gasped "as I was saying, I do that deliberately to annoy you and drive you to produce better and stronger results. They did it because they fear every padawan is a potential Sith. Which is a circumstance that they happily create for us."

"It is very effective," she said, "both your deliberate use of it and their inadvertant one. I'm sure they've convinced themselves that its for the greater good, while all along its doing the opposite. If they weren't so bent on making emotional eunichs of their students, maybe it would be easier to resist temptation. I've particularly noticed how very volitile my emotions are now, when before I was shoving them in a little mental safe to protect myself from them. Knowledge is power and the lack of it allows the strong to manipulate the weak who lack the essential information to protect themselves."

"Exactly. And enjoy the volatility! There is one assurance in life: we will all die. Make the most of each precious moment, feel it, live it. We nearly died today. Ten minutes from now, we could be dead."

He reached over to grasp Zyro's breast. "This may be the last slave I fondle..." he said with a happy sigh.

"The fact that I'm enjoying it would have shocked me before I left Dantooine. Have I actually thanked you yet Master? For claiming me and making me into this, I mean. I was very ungrateful before."

"You were. You were a terrible worm."

He wiggled Zyro's breast around. "See that, slave? She was like you once, but she learned. She was liberated in her service. You can find that too."

He leaned close to her. "You just have to admit this is what you born to be."

For a moment Zyro's eyes half closed at her breath came out in a pant. She opened them again, and seemed to see nothing. Then it was over and she shifted back into denial. *No, he's wrong. He's manipulatinf my mind, I'd never that, I never will."

Iocina watched the play of emotions crossing the slave's face. Want, fear, need, determination. It was entertaining to see her confirm his words in her actions, then try to hide them.

She sucked on the tip one finger, tasting rust and copper, "Yes Master, I can see what you mean," she ran her fingers down her naked spine, "I thank you for recreating me. Someday, slave, you'll say the same thing and realize what a privilage it is to kneel willingly at our Lord's feet."

He chuckled past another surge of pain, then laid back. "How bad is my knee?" he asked Zyro.

"My lord," she said hesitantly "you've ruptured a bursa sac, you've destroyed all the cartilage, and you're missing a medial ligament. It's a miracle that you're still walking. It must be tremendously painful."

Bronus entered silently, bearing a laden tray with Alianne followed with a pitcher and cups. Bronus too bore some signs of abuse, but remained serene."

Oh and I'll bet Alianne doesn't like Bronus' calm acceptance nearly so much as Zyro's obvious fear.

Both women knelt simultaneously and offered their trays to Ullan first.

He snatched up the bottle of brandy and took a long, heavy pull from it.

"Oh yes," he said. "This. This is why I did it. Well, that and the promise of an army of slaves who would do whatever I directed of them. But mostly this."

"How many of the ones here will be left after this," she asked, "I'm not exactly confident that anyone left will be at all useful."

She reached out and took a plate for herself, not deigning to share any of it as she ate.

"We may have to put the rest of them down just because they don't have the mental capacity to follow orders more complex than 'kill, maim, fight'"

"Already planned for. Among other things, this ship carries a payload of targeted nanovirus. We're going to scour all life from the colony, then start over with a fresh batch."

Zyro gasped aloud, her hand shaking. When his eyes snapped toward her, she stammered. "My... my lord?"

He used the end of the bottle to lift her chin up. "You have an opinion you think we need to hear on the subject, little slave?"

"But... those are people!" she said.

"And? A few hundred survivors at this point." He moved her head around with the bottle, nudging it left and right. "How many sentient beings died in the past second in this galaxy? Millions? Easily. Possibly billions. Are you mourning them? Easily tens of thousands were murdered in the time it took me to speak this sentence. Do you mourn them? Death is everywhere. This is a galaxy full of it, a natural consequence of the temerity of life. What does it matter if a few hundred irrelevant nobodies die here and now? Even if they weren't already broken by the enslaving machine, who would care?"

"Think of it as culling the herd," Iocina said, setting her empty plate on the floor, "or putting them out of their misery if that appeals to sense of compassion. Either way you don't particularly have any say in it."

She stood and tried to stretch but came up a bit short as her cracked ribs protested, "Let me ask you this little doctor, do you really care about these people? Ah," she reached out and squeezed Zyro's lips together drawing a whimper as her cut lip began to ooze blood, "now don't speak out of turn. Do you care about these people or are you reacting so strongly because you feel guilty about the fact that you don't care? You've never met them, never would have, they're nothing to you, do you really care with all your heart?"

Zyro made a choked sob. Ullan leaned in close. "When we lost thirty thousand troops in two days of fighting on Illif, did you cry? When the Mandalorians sacked Nuskit Prime because the Republic pulled out despite having numbers and defensive positions, did you care? When Vilargo was consumed by the Devourer, did you even know it happened? Did you?"

His voice was rising with his fury. Iocina had been with him long enough to tell the difference between his theatrical anger or his carefully manufactured and harvested anger he used in battle.

This was real, raw, and deep, a product of unhealed wounds having their scabs torn off.

Powers or no, wounded and half broken, a killing rage was building in Ullan, and Zyro was walking on the precipice of life and death. At her side, both Alianne and Bronus tensed, Bronus from long experience and Alianne from instinctive recognition of the danger welling in the room.

Iocina stood back and simply watched as Zyro shrank in on herself, the doctor was a fun toy and they needed someone with medical experience, but she could be replaced. If it satisfied her master's anger to maim or destroy the slave she would take over his care as best she could, made a bit easier by the fact that Zyro had already programmed the device hovering over Ullan's knee. Alianne and Bronus could clean up the mess.

"No," she said, expression bleak, "I didn't know, and the fate of these people doesn't affect me either," her breath hitched and she blurted, "You're right, Master, I don't care about these people."

Zyro licked her lips, flinching at the taste of blood, and sank to the floor awkwardly. Her facedown bow was just as uncoordinated, but Iocina thought it might be genuine this time.

Complete surrender was the one answer to his rage. His fists clenched as he glared at her back,the moments stretching out in awful tension.

"Get back to work, you worthless slave," he ordered. "Worm, enter sequence 97722416 PLADKA into the main system. Nobody exits the ship without permission."

"Yes Master," she bowed at the waist and went to comply, then spent a few moments checking the main and sub-systems for tampering. She didn't think that in such a short time Zyro could have had a chance to send a transmission, particularly since the comm was locked out and only Ullan had the code. Still, it didn't hurt to check for an attempt. Finding nothing, she returned to the med bay.

Zyro was working silently at an increased pace, tracks of tears on her pale face. Her mouth and chin were wet with her own blood. Iocina sat carefully in one of the chairs, she wasn't in much pain comparatively but it would be stupid to strain cracked ribs into breaking and causing internal damage.

Her mind drifted a few moments and she examined her feelings. She had no guilt about anything that had transpired below, and it satisfied her rather than becoming a source of worry and angst.

Ullan was still fuming, his orders brusque and snappish. He dumped a bowl of soup in Alianne's lap and sent her back for another.

"We'll be cooped in here for a week," he said. "That will give everything time to clear. I have a lot of signals to send, though. A lot of pieces are coming together at the right time and place."

In spite of his optimistic words, his organic hand still clenched and unclenched. There would be human suffering in the craft before the day was done, the only question was which eligible recipient suffer first or the most.

"Is there anything you'd like me to work on in the ship, Master? The only thing that comes to mind on my own is if I get my ribs patched up I was thinking doing katas until my fraking hands bleed. I need to get better, particularly while blinded in case something like this ever happens again or," she added thoughtfully, "I need to hide a trained Force presence from someone looking for it."

"We'll work on mechanical theory and demolitions until we're ready to practice the Force cloaking," he said. "That's very dependent on who is looking and how familiar with you they are, of course."

He backhanded Zyro away from his abdomen. "That's enough. Go fix the Worm."

Zyro flicked her eyes up into Iocina's face beseechingly as she began her examination. She never spoke, merely used her hands and gestures to indicate how she needed Iocina to move.

Iocina deliberately didn't meet her eyes, waiting until the slave looked as though she wanted to cry. She smiled faintly at her and reached out a hand to pet her hair and lightly stroke her cheek. Her skin was pale and cold beneath her fingers.

"You'll be bathing me again when you're done with what our Master desires of you," she said, and was amused to see fear and longing in her face. Fear of what Iocina would do to her once they were alone and longing to get away for a moment from Ullan and Alianne in that order.

"Bronus," he said. "Backrub."

He rolled slowly onto his stomach, then found a small empty vial on the shelf. He threw it down on the floor. "New slave, push that from one end of the room to the other. With your nose. Until I tell you to stop."

"Yes my lord," she said, falling into a slow, graceful crawl, her body undulating across the floor sensually.

"The agent that was released," he said as Bronus began to massage his shoulders "was a neurotoxin developed by a team under Malak's supervision. It's fast on infection, but the death comes relatively slow. It attacks the immune system first, turning it on overdrive so that it begins to attack the nervous system, which in turn induces low-grade spasms. For most species, it also tends to increase nervous response- in test trials, even the lightest touch was significantly painful. At the higher ends, even the act of breathing is painful. It attacks the occulomotor nerves specifically, for most species locking the eyes open. Eventually the spasms intensify, until the muscles begin to shred themselves. Finally at the last, intense coughing spasms rupture the diaphragm, and they choke in their own juices."

He glanced over at Zyro's back. "Right now, most of them will start feeling the fever. It will take the better part of a day for most of them to die."

Zyro made of soft sound from the floor, but choked it off almost immediately. Iocina nudged to vial out of the way slightly in admonishment so she'd have to chase it to return it to its course.

"I assume that's one of those nasty illegal drug you mentioned to the customs officer?" she asked.

"Of all the times to be cut off from the Force," she screwed her mouth up into a mock pout, then laughed softly, "it sounds it would have been an interesting experience to feel all of that."

"One of, yes," he said. "There's a small sample aboard, we'll test it on someone who offends us so you can ride the sensation out. It's quite a melange- helplessness, suffering, fear, and often anger. Quite delicious. Perhaps if Zero here doesn't shape up..."

He glanced up at Bronus. "Is the new tub finished?"

She hesitated. "We were interrupted by the intruders attempting to board the ship," she said.

He nodded, then reached over to bend her wrist back. She reared up, her back arching as he pinched down on her hand between metal thumb and forefinger at a precise nerve cluster.

"You see," he told Iocina "one does not need the Force to inflict unbearable agony, or to master a slave. It just makes it more delicious."

Her eyes flicked to the good doctor, "I'll explore that in a little while," she said, "Since you'll be stuck here a bit while your knee is being repaired is there anything I can bring you Master?"

The kolto injections over her ribs burned pleasantly. Some found that kolto had emotional effects, sometimes disturbing ones. Iocina always found that kolto alone made her a bit hyperactive, and C3 had always leveled that out with a very mild sedative which now that she thought about it had probably been ordered by Vrook.

For the last two weeks she'd been sorting through her memories and examining the actions of the knights and masters she'd spent time around or who'd taught her. Many things began to make sense, from the perspective of someone who thinks they are protecting a not so stable individual from themselves. Not all of it had been obvious, but she usually picked out one or two things that explained things that had been inexplicable until now.

He finally released Bronus' hand. She almost collapsed in relief. "Your worthless slave apologizes for her failure and thanks her master for correcting her."

"Go finish the kriffing tub. If it's not ready by the time I'm out of this regenerater, I'll mount your worthless slave head on the bow."

She quickly climbed down. "At once master."

He stuck his arm out to Alianne, who began to stroke and massage it. Glancing over, he caught Iocina's eye. "You're looking thoughtful."

"I've just been thinking about things that never added up when I was an initiate and then a padawan," she mused, "Kolto taken internally makes me hyperactive, and the medical droids on Dantooine always mixed it with a light sedative. I assumed they did this to everyone, but that doesn't really make a lot of sense."

Iocina shrugged, "I'm just seeing how deep they went trying to control me through suppressing my emotions for me as well as teaching me to do it myself. Well, you know how I fight. That isn't something new, I've always done that and it even worried Yuld at times. Vrook was downright disgusted by it. Its as though my higher functioning thoughts recede and all I can see and do is fight."

"It goes right along with what we were talking about earlier, with my access to knowledge outside what was prescribed to me under tight control. I don't even know what I don't know."

His eyes narrowed as he stared at her. Then he snatched up a pad and began tapping rapidly.

"We'll start you out with some politics, stellar history. Frinz's Roots of Mandalore was actually near a required reading with the original Revanchists, if we'd been organized enough to have required readings. Chancellor Ston actually imprisoned Dula Nasr for A Fading Light , due to the historical and systematic corruption it exposed in the Republic. Darkness Consumes is am outside perspective of the Sith that somehow manages to avoid being Jedi propaganda. You start with those, I expect all three of them read by the end of our wait period. Along with your other assigned duties, of course."

He tossed her the pad.

She caught it, knowing the yearning expression on her face might in fact be ridiculous. Iocina had always had a deep avarice for books, even required reading if it had been interesting enough. She'd read a long treatise on the continuing evolution of lightsaber forms four times once before Vrook actually deleted it from her data-pad. Too violent I suppose.

"Do I have any duties ahead of this, Master?"

"Ship's maintenance, demolitions training, sparring, and any personal use I may have for you. Go take Zero for your shower, you're not going to have much leisure after that. Or sleep."

"Shower I think," she decided, "sleep can wait. I won't be able to sleep when I'm so jittery anyway."

Iocina nudged the doctor between the legs with her bare toes as she crawled near her, "You get to bathe me again, I know you're looking forward to it," she said, poisonous charm in her voice.

"Yes mistress," she scrambled to her feet and plucked the vial from the floor for disposal. Iocina grabbed her hand, digging her thumbnail between the tendons in her wrist, and tugged her towards the cabin.

Zyro made a unhappy little pain sound and Iocina pressed deeper. She could feel her nail draw a tiny bit of blood and waited for a louder squeak before letting her go.

"Get me out of these garbage robes," she said, holding her arms up. "Did you have fun while I was gone?"

Zyro began to shake her head in the negative but stopped when she caught Iocina's look, "Yes mistress," she said quietly, "it was, um, very educational."

"Good to hear it, now put those to the side to have Bronus decide whether to try and salvage any of it in case we need them for some damned reason," she walked into the 'fresher and began adjusting the temperature in the shower.

Zyro ducked under the spray after her mistress, acutely aware of how confused she felt. She felt incredibly grateful to be here, bathing this woman instead of at the tender mercies of the cruel red-head who seemed to have no greater joy than to torment she and Bronus while they all tried to complete their assignments.

"Tell me what you're thinking," Iocina ordered sharply, her voice didn't match her body language as she leaned into the slave's hands as she scrubbed her back.

"I'm out of my depth," she answered, then looked away as Iocina laughed softly.

"That isn't new information, elaborate."

"I, um, missed you when you were gone," she said quickly, face going crimson. Iocina turned to have her front washed and her face lit with a seemingly genuine smile. Zyro didn't know what to make of her, and she supposed that was the idea. She hadn't had a very like psychiatric rotation, just the basic three weeks that every interning medical student endured.

She wanted to call Iocina psychotic, with her abrupt mood swings and capricious actions. However, she'd come to realize the past two weeks that nearly all of this was carefully calculated. She wanted Zyro to be on guard and uncomfortable, and even being able to analyze it she found it had worked completely.

"I was only gone a few hours," the Sith said, taking Zyro's hand and sliding it between her own legs, "Do you like this?" she asked abruptly, "me controlling you? Touch me, I think you know how."

"Yes," the slave answered, whether saying she liked being controlled or she liked stroking her fingers against Iocina's smooth flesh she couldn't even say. She began to play with her mistress' sex, as she would have with her own lover she was supposed to be forgetting. Iocina pushed her against the wall, grasping her other wrist and pinning it down.

As she slid a finger slowly inside her, Iocina lowered her head and pressed her mouth to hers. She whimpered, hand going still.

"Did I say you could stop? Slave?" Iocina spoke into her mouth and Zyro shuddered, beginning to finger her mistress in earnest.

Iocina nipped at the wound on Zyro's lip, drawing it into her mouth and sucking coppery heat into her mouth, Force this feels good, she thought desperately, beginning to reach the point where pleasure was going to become intense frustration.

She slid her own hand between Zyro's legs, and laughed to find her slick with desire, "Oh yes," she said, "you do like this don't you pet? You like being my little slave don't you?"

Zyro gasped, bucking desperately against Iocina's probing fingers, "Yes, I... yes," she said, "I'm your slave," her voice came out in a sob and fresh tears began to run down her face. Iocina was becoming very fond of those tears.

Just as she felt Zyro begin to tighten around her fingers, Iocina yanked her hand away and shoved her wet fingers into Zyro's mouth just as she'd done before, "You like this too don't you?"

Zyro whined deep in her throat, sucking her juices from her mistress' fingers, "Please, let me," she begged, writhing against the wall.

"No." Iocina dropped a kiss on her forehead, "If I ever catch you touching yourself, you'll regret it. Alianne's little games are child's play to what I can do to you little doctor."

She shut the water off and stepped out, "Dry me, then yourself. Do not dry between your sweet legs, I want you to know what you've been denied."

"Yes mistress," Zyro said miserable, and fetched a towel.

Ullan was instructing Alianne when they returned. "Now on humans, you have certain points with extremely superficial nerve clusters. For example..."

He reached inside of her thigh and twisted. Alianne bucked and screeched, her hands dancing at her side. "Anyway, Zero will instruct you on where those are and how to reach them."

He looked up at Zyro. "If you miss any, I will use you to demonstrate them. Worm! I want a full inventory on the industrial supplies in the cargo bay, then I want you to neatly stack up a pile of the ones you think would make good bombs."

Iocina "Yes master. May I get dressed first?"

He glanced over, looking her over from head to toe. He sat up, the regenerator dragging its lines across the bunk. "Come here."

She stepped forward, going around Zyro and Alianne kneeling on the floor as Zyro explain hesitantly about all the painful places on a human's body.

He began to touch Iocina, his fingers tracing the scars left by their deliberately crude healing processes. Many of course were still fresh and tender; these he probed at roughly, poking and twisting the damaged tissue. "You're becoming a work of art," he said.

"Yes," she agreed, "at the beginning it disturbed me at first. I've begun to appreciate it now though." she stroked her fingers ove two bisecting lines just above one breast.

"We don't hide from what we've done and what's been done to us," he said. "These are marks of pride. Well for me, anyway. For you they're marks of where you were too stupid or clumsy to duck."

He leaned down to kiss her, then gave her a light-but-stinging backhand from the metal arm. "Go ahead and get dressed, make sure that Bronus is properly inspired to finish the tub."

He beckoned Alianne and Zyro. "Come over here, slaves. You," he pointed Alianne, then between his feet. "Here, back to me."

She grinned and went to obey, dressing herself quickly. She discovered with amusement that it was a copy of the first such garment she'd worn, but now with four rows of sharp pricking needles.

She found Bronus hard at work, her back to Iocina. She waited until the slave's hands were momentarily empty and grabbed her by the hair. Even surprised Bronus didn't struggle, merely made a sound thay was only half pain.

"Zyro said she missed me, did you?" she asked, pressing a hard kiss to her lips. Both of them had been so busily occupied during the journey here to interact at all.

Bronus kissed her back, and when Iocina released her, she nodded. "Our master is pleased with you, Mistress Worm."

Her face was careful, studied blankness, the bland appearance of a slave. She was less marked than Zyro by Alianne's ministrations, likely by giving the cruel slave less satisfaction from her torments.

"I hope so, he hasn't called me a worthless failure in days," she said as she looked over Bronus' work.

"Looks like you're nearly done," she remarked, how long till you're finished?"

"Another fifteen minutes or so, Mistress Worm," she said as she slipped away to resume fitting the water attachment. "Lord Ullan enjoys his baths when he has the opportunity, but few ships have them."

Unspoken but demonstrable from her expertise was that she'd assembled bathtubs for Ullan before on other ships.

"Report to him when you're done, obviously," she said as walked away.

In the cargo hold she searched for any type of manifest but found none, if it existed it was in one of the databases she wasn't permitted to access. She resorted to opening crates in a more or less orderly fashion pushing or pulling them into different areas as they were sorted.

Two crates held completed charges and grenades, including a dozen or so thermal detonators. Others held chemicals, volatile minerals and things that could be converted into mines and bombs.

Using the datapad containing her required reading she made her own manifest, then sorted all the other crates as well. Many things had obvious uses, including medical supplies, rations, some survival gear. Anything she didn't immediately recognize she described.

Her arms and back ached from the exertion, and her barely mended ribs screames. She sighed happily and returned to hand Ullan the datapad and report verbally.

He had moved to demonstrating pressure points on Bronus, a bit of a show and tell with Alianne.

"Then you press into the notch behind the jaw, like so..." he said. Alianne followed his direction and jammed her finger in. Bronus' kicked her legs as she groaned at the pressure, but her lips curled in a small smile even as she did.

"Carry on," he told Alianne as he accepted the datapad from Iocina. He'd been switched from the bulky regenerator to a kolto patch on the knee, and was moving a great deal more smoothly.

She reported, nearly verbatim, what she'd found in the cargo hold, "I'm not any kind of demolitions expert, but the size of some of the empty casings look like they'd a good amount of shrapnel around the core."

"They would. Better when you pack other materials in. But we're going to discuss how to make very large explosions."

He began to lecture on the dynamics of explosions as they walked back to the cargo bay, making broad gestures as he described the esoterica of pressure waves and other arcane mechanisms by which to make great things much smaller.

"Of course, it's not about the size of a blast," he continued, patting a support spar "it's about placement. Small charges in the proper place can bring down an entire structure. Identifying those points is the key element."

"Hivvis had planned to teach me that at some point, though obviously in the nature offinding and neutralizing them," she said, "Actually, he taught me a lot of useful things like circumventing security doors and slicing computers. Vrook put a stop to that after he found out about it when Yuld didn't return."

"Vrook prefers to just stab doors with his lightsaber, assuming his head doesn't just pound straight through them."

He rummaged around the crates as he spoke. "So what are your feelings about Hivvis now?"

She hesitated slightly, then chose honesty, "I'm not sure," she answered, "On the one had he is a Jedi and your enemy, thus I've sworn against your enemies. On the other, it was his doing that I'm back at your feet where I belong and not a witless slave to the council now. I can't begin to imagine what they'd have turned me into."

He nodded. "I've told you to listen to your feelings. But if we meet him in battle, we do our best to kill him. Is that understood?"

She nodded firmly, "Yes Master. I wonder if he was kicked out of the order for aiding the Sith? At the very least I believe he would leave anyway, his disgust at what the council was planning was obvious."

"It's a curious thing, but it would take a lot more consensus to wipe a Master on the Council, compared to a lowly padawan or the leader of the Sith. I expect they let him go, and I don't like having a wild card on the opposite side who very likely will make it his business to disrupt mine."

He grinned. "On the other hand, our worthiness is measured in the worthiness of our opposition. Now that he's been freed of the Order, Hivvis might actually make a decent enemy."

"Or he could have been told to come after us to repair his standing," she offered, sifting idly through an open crate she'd found a rather odd assortment of things in. Some of them, she assumed, were the illegal narcotics Ullan had mentioned, but her fingers brushed a soft cloth bag that she drew out and opened.

She offered it to Ullan, "Is this more what you had in mind, Master?"

He studied the crystals, holding them up, then tossed the bag back to her. "You're thinking you're ready for a lightsaber, then?"

She caught it and shrugged, "I'd like to not rely on a malfunctioning weapon again Master."

"Then that's added to your workload this week," he said. "And after you've spent this week running from one task to another and finishing your lightsaber, when you're at the ground-down edge of exhaustion, we'll spar and I'll decide on whether or not to let you keep it."

He walked over and tapped the water line for the tub. "By the way, the ACV plugs in the main hyperdrive linkage need replacement. You need to get on that. Slaves! Bath time!"

By the end of the week Iocina was exhausted, filthy, angry, and had a serious sense of accomplishment. She'd somehow managed to both survive and get everything done, mostly through a great deal of multitasking. Anywhere she had enough quiet while inside ducts and hatches, she'd set the datapad's autoread function. The mechanical voice wasn't unpleasant but it made even the most interesting passages sound dull. She'd listened to Darkness Consumes rather appropriately while working on her lightsaber. Her hands and fingers were covered in dozens of fresh scars, and she'd had to painfully rebuild saber callouses that had faded with the kolto treatments she'd had in the temple. They'd blistered, burst, bled and repeated the process until they were well enough to protect her skin.

She'd barely had time to sleep, never to bathe, and nearly as rarely to eat. She'd survived on five minute naps, ration bars, and all the water she could suck down between jobs.

She tossed the wrapper of a ration bar into the disposal and ducked her head beneath the tap for a drink, sighed, and went to find Ullan.

The Force had begun to return to them. Not fully, but enough that they could sense each other and feel the bonds. He had begun testing his strength that very morning, and was in the midst of pressing Bronus against the ceiling when she entered.

"So the saber is ready," he said without looking. "Hold on, let me assume the ceremonial pose for the first ignition."

He pressed his fingers into his ears. "Go ahead and fire it up."

She couldn't really argue with that, she'd seen training sabers fail. They hadn't exploded or taken anyone's hand off, but there had been damage.

The hilt was plain, dull silver and matte black, and she turned it around her hand before setting her thumb over the ignition switch. The crimson blade came into being, without even a flutter or vibration against her palm. It was shorter than Ullan's, more suited for her slighter stature.

Iocina gave it a few experimental passes, red light shimmering across Bronus' fair skin and the metal walls.

"Well, it didn't explode," she said, a slow smile growing on her face.

He lowered Bronus from the ceiling, letting her land gently on her feet. "Slaves, all of you come here."

He regarded Iocina with a hint of malice in his eyes. "And how are you feeling, little worm? Tired? Do you need a nap perhaps?"

Zyro and Alianne came in, the former veering as far away from the latter as she could, and shading toward Iocina's side of the room.

She didn't take the bait, and didn't take her eyes off of Ullan. She kept all three slaves in her peripheral vision as well.

"I've been tired for days, but I'm not ready to drop yet Master."

He reached down, slowly drawing his own lightsaber. "You've made it. Now we see if you're willing to do what it takes to keep it."

She nodded, giving a small ironic salute. She rushed forward immediately this time, bringing her blade back and then forward in a piercing movement. A tiny beckoning gesture with her fingers caused a crate of metal bits she'd been shredding for use in her bomb making experiments to release a cloud of deadly scraps and particles. These she flung at his back even as her saber was neatly turned aside.

 

With the one hand he deflected her strike, the other reaching up over his head to push the shrapnel above him, using the momentum she imparted to drive it back toward her. The shrapnel stream tightened into a corkscrewing mass, pointed directly at her, even as he launched a series of probing strikes aimed at her midsection.

She dropped back, opening one hand in a releasing gesture causing the whipping shards of metal to mostly dissipate. One caught her across the mouth and she tasted blood. She could feel the metal trapped in the flesh of her lower lip. She parried his middle attacks, then pretended to stumble back. She knew he was allowing her to do this, or he'd have gutted her by now, whipping her blade at his ankles as she 'fell'.

"That would have worked on Yuld," she said, "he always gave me room to get up even if it didn't teach me anything."

He hopped over her cut and slashed downward at her head. "Yuld was a fine swordsman, but a miserable excuse for a Sith and a pathetic teacher."

As she parried his slash he leapt over her, twisting in the air to dodge and upward thrust of her blade. He flung his hand outward as she rose and a knife-edged shard of shrapnel slashed along her arm, opening a cut from wrist to elbow.

"An element of classic knife-fighting," he said as he pressed in once more. "Make your enemy weaken from blood loss until they drop."

Iocina glared, and felt anger rise up. She had used her anger many times now, but this was different. She wasn't angry at Ullan, or at least mostly she was angry at other things. Yuld, the entire Jedi council, Vrook, the code that she had tried so hard to uphold only for it to completely fail her when she truly needed it. Over it all was a burning hatred that almost seemed to come from without, not over the bond, but from the whole galaxy itself.

She gave a quick glance at the gushing wound and flicked her blade across her entire forearm, flesh sizzling and smoking as the heat sealed and cauterized it. She took the pain and fed most of it into anger, and a little into the unending need that had been coiling inside her for weeks now.

Dancing to one side she reached out a hand and jerked Bronus in front of her, gripping her by the hair to use as a shield.

Unlike the other slaves, Bronus had years of acquaintance with Ullan's rather unorthodox training regimen. The woman went loose, standing upright but otherwise completely flowing with Iocina's movements. Iocina could taste her fear through her returning sense of the Force- who wouldn't be terrified in such a situation? But it was a controlled fear, sealed away in a frightened corner of Bronus' mind that allowed her to calmly function as the shield Iocina desired, a place of utter submission to the will of her mistress.

He smiled and launched attacks over and to each side of Bronus, the blade missing by mere inches each time and each time being met with a parry. When one thrust was met by an upward deflection over Bronus' left shoulder, he bulled forward, pressing his palm against Bronus' chest and using the Force to propel her backwards into Iocina.

Iocina fell back, Bronus landing limply on top of her. She shoved and Bronus calmly rolled away and rose up on her knees. She gathered her feet beneath her and tried to rise, only to be beaten back down again twice more. She screamed, an inarticulate howl of fury and gathered a fist full of power, flinging it at Ullan. It shoved him back, enough for her to spring back to her feet, and she rushed him.

Her eyes were flat black disks in her face, empty of anything but the desire to destroy.

He locked his blade against hers, their faces inches apart, separated by a fence of coherent light.

"Let the hatred flow through you," he intoned. "Hate everything."

Suddenly her hair whipped around her face, blocking her vision, forcing itself down her throat and up her nose.

She ignored it, attacking blindly. Iocina could sense everything around her, as she'd never done before even with a net of energy cast out as she sought to make a map of things. Here was Ullan, a towering inferno of dark energy and deadly menace. There were Alianne and Zyro, ironically huddled close to one another in kinship for the first time. Bronus, an eddy of calm but with odd flickers of red and grey in her aura. There also was every obstacle and possible weapon in the room.

As she'd done on Vilargo Iocina reached out and gathered a storm of debris around her, sending it to orbit in rings that extended and swam in opposing loops. She focused all her rage on Ullan, every pain and scar, every denial, and all the hatred she had for herself in one vicious strike.

He stood in the center of the storm, a dome of Force energy holding back the torrent of debris. Screaming filled the room, Alianne and Zyro huddled together uselessly as their gods dueled before them. He drove Iocina's hair further down her throat, the wet fibers choking off her air. She could feel him burning in the Force, his rage firing to match hers. Images of betrayal flashed through her mind, the Republic, the Jedi, his own fellows during and after the war.

Slowly he forced her down to her knees.

Her blade was held above her head as she crumpled slowly, lights exploding in her head and the knowledge of her death screaming in the tiny part of her mind where she'd closed off all higher forms of thought. She forced herself to remain upright, pushing against his blade and his power with all the strength she had left in her.

They stood locked in contest, the Force raging about them, two devotees of the Dark Side throwing their passions and their anger headlong at each other.

I won't insult you by ordering you to submit.

His metal fist lashed out suddenly, catching her in the ribs precisely on the point where they'd cracked and then been patched, fracturing them anew.

She fell back, and heard dimly as her head struck the floor. She could feel one cracked rib break, felt it nick something important in her chest. Still, barely conscious from suffocation she flung out a hand and tried to force him back. Her other hand spasmed, dropping her weapon. The blade receded, driving even the memory of light from her vision.

He sat atop her chest, the hair pulling itself from her throat, ragged and sodden with her saliva and bile. He shifted his weight slightly to the side and she felt a fresh shiver of agony as a sliver of bone sliced through muscle.

"Now," he said, his hand on her throat, his eyes on hers. "Now you may submit."

Her lips shaped the words, but her voice was purely mental, ::I yield, my Lord.::

He loosened his grip on her throat and got up slowly. A bloom was blossoming along his face and blood dripped from one ear- he hadn't gone through the battle unscathed, by any stretch.

"Slaves. Slaves!" he bellowed suddenly, bringing sudden silence to the sobbing hysterics. "Get over here and tend to Mistress Worm. Clean her up, feed her, and take her to bed."

Bronus was of course the first to her side. "Please let me help you up, Mistress Worm," she said, gently pulling on Iocina's arm.

Her breath was ragged, and loud in her ears, as she tried to roll over herself. She gasped, ribs grinding together as Bronus grabbed one arm and Zyro another. Together they got her mostly to her feet and slung her arms across their shoulders to carry her between them. She vaguely remembered lying in the med bay for a time, and Zyro forcing her to drink water, then three hot salty cups of nutritive broth which she tried to refuse on grounds of her throat burning like razor cuts. Zyro protested quietly when Bronus insisted they move Iocina to the bed as soon as her ribs had been knit in place and kolto injections and patches had covered her wounds.

Before they slipped out of the room Iocina felt each of them press a kiss to her stinging lips, Zyro whispering something in her ear that she thought was interesting as she drifted off.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Iocina!" Urla said, taking a step forward.
> 
> R'l'nch studied her, then touched Urla's shoulder. "She is lost."
> 
> "There is no emotion," Urla said, dropping into a ready position.
> 
> "There is peace," R'l'nch said, mirroring the motion. They would, under other circumstances, be formidable opposition. Here, they had no idea just how outmatched they were.
> 
> “We have our own little mantra. Well then..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whelp, sorry this took so incredibly wrong. I've been having a rough time but now everything has sorted itself out and I'm doing pretty great! Going to try and pound all this editing out to get this all out there!

She awoke to the distinctive thrumming of the ship's systems. They were in flight once more. Alianne knelt at her side, fiddling with her hair.

She flicked her eyes to the side, too comfortable at the moment to be in any rush to rise.

"What do you want?" she asked warily. Automatically she began to slowly shift and flex her muscles, beginning with her toes and working her way up each muscle group to check for pain and flexibility issues.

She had been well-tended in her time of unconsciousness, her wounds patched, her bones regenerated. She could even smell the scented oils that had been rubbed into her skin, a pleasant floral fragrance, at least initially. It had apparently been rubbed quite enthusiastically onto her upper lip and was quite powerful after a moment.

"Lord Ullan ordered that one of us should wait by your side at all hours until you awoke, Mistress Worm," she said. "And that we were to do your bidding when you were ready to rise. He said 'When that lazy bantha gets over her little beating tell her to get up and make herself useful' and ordered us to speak those exact words to you."

She grinned, feeling her lower lip burn as it stretched. Deceptively gentle she took Alianne's hand and tugged the girl half across her body. The slave didn't fight and merely allowed herself to be rolled into the middle of the bed. Iocina rose up on her side and lowered her face to press her mouth to the other girl's.

Alianne kissed her back, hands flowing through the space between them, her touch confident and skilled. Iocina could sense her fear, but still this was familiar territory for the slave, and her responses were so ingrained as to be automatic.

"Stop," Iocina ordered, "be still," she waited until Alianne's hands had fallen back against the mattress before stroking her fingers through the red hair spread out on the black sheets.

"I just feel like touching, mostly," she said, running her hand down the side of Alianne's face and cupping her breast, "Have you actually ever felt pleasure without fear? Without needing to fake your way through it I mean?" Iocina realized she was genuinely curious.

"I don't understand, Mistress Worm," she said. "I don't... get the pleasure from this that others do. It was never my place. I am a slave, to be used."

"Have you ever wanted to, though?" she dropped her own hands away from the girl's flesh, "I was a virgin before Ullan claimed me, I suppose technically I still am. I'm curious what you feel about sex and pleasure, tell me."

She frowned, the mask dropping away though the wariness remained in her eyes, the certainty that cruelty and humiliation were coming. After all, Iocina had power and that was what those with power used it for.

"It is a way that the masters and mistresses use my body," she said. "It pleases them to do so and I of course serve."

"No, that's not what I want to know. I want to know the thoughts in your own head. I know you have lots of interesting little thoughts because you're cruel and clever and enjoy making others suffer. I like that about you," she said, "I want to know what makes you tick. Have you ever felt physical pleasure before?"

She shrugged. "A little. Some. I know what it's supposed to look like and I can pretend to feel that, but..."

She reached up and pushed a finger into her own ear, then her mouth, then slightly into her nose. "One place is like another. I think," her brow furrowed. "I feel that feeling when I have enough to eat." She nodded, suddenly satisfied with her answer. "And when I cause pain. When I hear Zyro cry or see Bronus shake from a hurt I cause. Then..."

She reached down between her legs. "Then I feel it here."

"You came when I was being tortured, yes?" at Alianne's nod Iocina smiled, "You should explore that some more I think. Lust is a wonderful motivator," she said wryly, "This game is less fun with you, you don't tremble and squeak like Zyro."

Iocina rolled over and got to her feet. Her stomach felt like an empty pit, "Get me food, a lot of it," she flicked a finger, sending Alianne sprawling on the floor.

She followed as the slave scrambled to her feet and went to the galley. Iocina propped her bare feet up on a second chair and examined her inner arm. The flesh from elbow to wrist was puckered and rippled. She twisted it, flexing and moving her joints. It was stiff, but less than she'd expected. It would probably ache in the cold.

Alianne stacked plate after plate in front of her, offering a selection of food without pause. "What would Mistress Worm like to drink?" she asked.

She could hear the distinctive thrum of the hyperdrive now that she'd moved forward. Not only were they aloft, they were hurtling through space at faster than light.

She sighed, "Just water," she said, and began working her way through the food. The memory of how much and how quickly Ullan had eaten the morning after they'd left Vilargo came to mind as she ate and she surprised herself by finishing nearly all of the huge meal.

Alianne knelt patiently at her side as Iocina plowed through the food, clearing dishes as each plate was finished. "Does Mistress Worm require anything else?" she asked as she put the last plate away.

"No," she said, draining the last of the water in her cup. She stood and walked away, ignoring the slave as she began to stack the dishes in the scrubber.

Iocina went into the cockpit, staring out into the whorling stars. She'd always loved hyperspace and had spent more time aboard a ship recently than she had in her whole life.

Ullan slipped up behind her, his hand moving around her waist. "About time you got up," he grumbled in her ear. "Lovely scent, though."

He stared over her shoulder, and she could sense his appreciation of the view as well. Along the link, she could gather his feeling on the scene- space was freedom, hyperspace was movement. Never stopping, always going, always a new trial, a new way to prove oneself.

"Thank you for the lesson, yesterday or whenever it was. I hope I didn't discredit myself completely. What would you have me do now, Master?" she asked, squirming back against him. His hand on her skin felt hot, and the warmth seemed to spread through her.

"Two days," he said. "Two days it took you to recover, you little worm."

He pulled her tight against his body, and she could feel the stimulation she was causing, both physically and across the link. But still, he would not take her. Not until she had satisfied his conditions for the act. She could sense that across the link as well.

"Be ready for a fight," he said. "We're going to collect some slaves. A great many of them."

She smiled faintly and ground herself a bit harder against him provokingly, "I'll go get dressed then," she paused, "Did I do well enough to keep the lightsaber?"

He lowered his head and sank his teeth into her collarbone, stopping just short of breaking the skin.

“You were marginally adequate and may someday actually amount to a low-rent Sith, yes.”

He guided her hand back to his manhood, palm over the cloth of his trousers, allowing her the touch.

Iocina stroked him through the cloth for a moment, thinking, then slowly turned and dropped to her knees. "May I?" she asked, resting her fingers lightly on his belt.

"You may not," he said, pushing her head away firmly enough to smack it against the console. "You may, however, guide your little pet through the process. She's never performed the act for a man before. Zero! Get in here!"

He threw himself down in the pilot's seat.

Zyro hurried in, glanced at Iocina with a measure of fear and relief in her eyes. "Yes, Lord Ullan?"

"On your knees, little slave whore. It's time you learned a very valuable skill in your new life."

She didn't bother to hide her anger at being denied from the bond, but her face showed no trace of it. She licked her lips and smiled tenderly at Zyro.

"I'm going to teach you how to pleasure your Master," she said, running a fingernail down the slave's spine, objectively noticing that someone had given her a manicure. It had to have been Bronus, she couldn't see Alianne knowing how to do it and wasn't certain about the doctor.

"Now, here," she said, pressing a hand between Zyro's knees and spreading her legs apart slightly where she knelt, "sit up straight and smile. I know you want to be a good slave, don't you?"

"Yes of course, Mistress Worm," she said. She glanced up at Ullan with large, fearful eyes, prompting a predatory smile from him.

First she must crawl to me and clean my boots and beg for the privilege, he sent. The privilege you're not worthy of yet.

"That's a good pet," she crooned, "did Alianne teach you the most submissive bow yet?" at Zyro's nod she gave her a small push on the lower back using the Force. Zyro jumped slightly and Iocina realized she'd never touched her with her power before.

Zyro curled herself down into little hump obediently, "There, now crawl forward and show your subservience slave. "Clean your Master's boots with your mouth and beg him for the privilege to touch his body."

Zyro crawled forward slowly, still awkward in her motions, and began to lick at Ullan's boots. This, at least, she did with a certain amount of practiced competence, apparently haven't polished his boots many times by now.

"Please master," she said in a tremulous voice. "Please let your slave touch your body."

"You've never done this for a man before, have you," he said. His knowing grin at Iocina told her that he already knew the answer, but she could sense his arousal at forcing the slave to vocalize her situation.

"No master, this slave has never been with a man before."

"And I'm not taking you, as such. Not until the Mistress here kills her first Jedi. I've taken virgins before, but never two at once. Still, you may pleasure me with your mouth. Sit up."

She rocked back onto her heels and he clenched her jaw in his metal hand. "What is this good for," he asked her.

Zyro looked left and right as her mind frantically scrabbled for the answer. "Whatever you wish it to be, my Lord."

"Precisely. Your mouth, every part of your body, exists only for my use. There is nothing beneath you because there is nothing beneath a slave. You are the lowest form of life in the universe, animate furniture, a tool in my hand. Mine, and the Worm's."

He clenched down hard enough to cause a small sob of pain to erupt from Zyro's lips, then shook her head and released her. Sitting back, he beckoned for Iocina to continue.

"You're a physician, so at least you know all about the anatomy, yes?" she coaxed, carefully reaching up Ullan's front and unfastening the front of his trousers. He was hard, as she'd felt against her bottom.

"Remember, when you cleaned my fingers?" she asked, and Zyro nodded. Iocina was amused by subtle flexing of thighs that showed she definitely remembered, "Good, lets start with that."

She moved to press herself against Zyro's back, drawing the woman's hands behind her back. "Keep these here for now," she instructed, then began to whisper instructions into her ear, and soft encouragements.

Zyro didn't start crying, at least not then, even as Iocina took her head between her hands guided her mouth forward.

::You may enter her mind, he sent. Between us, we've made a delightful wreck of a once-functional and proud woman. She has no idea what to think.::

He sighed happily as Zyro's mouth slid onto his manhood. "Always look up," he said. "Don't close your eyes. Let me see your fear and obedience." A crook of his pinky finger pinned her eyelids back with the Force, causing her eyes to dart about crazily. Another twist gave her the sensation of touches across her body, light, feathery impressions teasing at her skin. Goosebumps rose across her flesh, even in the warmth of the cockpit.

She slipped into Zyro's thoughts almost hesitantly, this wasn't something she'd done before. Taking information from Bronus wasn't the same, this was putting something in. It was worse than that practically benign plundering, this was true rape.

She gently touched a memory, of warmth and lapping tongues and soft moans, "You desire this, just as you desire the taste of a woman," she murmured, nipping Zyro's earlobe. Her wide eyes rolled back and she hummed around Ullan's length.

"Like this," Iocina stroked a finger down the line of her neck and forced the muscles to relax. She wove fingers in the mass of dark hair and guided her to take him deeper, holding her there until her throat spasmed around the intrusion and letting her pull away enough to breath.

She felt Ullan's sly touch in Zyro's mind as well, making small tweaks. Desire, yes, but fear also, a confusing and delicious cocktail.

Setting opposing desires causes no end of confusion and consternation, Worm.

He slipped Zyro back down his length, then used the Force to pinch off her nostrils.

::Take her to the edge of blackout, then weave in the fear and euphoria from that. Make a medley of sensation associated with this act, and all others she will perform regularly in this vein.::

By the time she slipped back out of Zyro's mind there were tears pouring freely down her face and making thin tracks down her chest. Iocina's hands toyed with her full breasts as she moaned and whimpered. She sucked and licked eagerly, eyes locked on Ullan's face.

Her hips rocked back and forth helplessly, and her mind was nothing but need-fear-want-fear-desire-fear. When this was over she'd briefly be allowed the terror of knowing she'd been changed, but still loving every moment.

Iocina laughed softly, sliding one hand between Zyro's legs and stroked her till she began to writhe in sheer desperation.

::Should I let her, Master, or leave her wanting?::

::Give it to her,:: he ordered. ::She will only know fulfillment when she's being taken from now on, never when she gives it freely.::

Zyro cried out, taking Ullan in deeply as she groaned and rubbed herself against Iocina's probing fingers. Frustration and need poured through the bond as the slave's hips ground into Iocina's front. Iocina swore bitterly and Zyro shuddered as she rode out the wave.

He laughed out loud as his own climax surged through him, battering against the bond, a wave of pleasure that even leaked into Zyro's mind.

“Share with Mistress Worm,” he ordered.

Zyro half turned to meet Iocina in a kiss, spilling Ullan's seed into her mouth. Iocina swallowed, deepening the kiss, and her hand twitched, desperately wanting to plunge it between her own legs. She knew it would be an exercise in frustration and futility, and let him see it.

I really need to kill a Jedi.

He sat back in the chair, putting his feet up on Zyro's back and forcing her down into footrest position. ::You had your opportunity and didn't take it. You're lucky the offer is even still valid, you abysmal wretch. Now let's finish what we started.::

He guided her back into Zyro's mind.

Thank you for giving me a final chance Master, she centered herself and mastered her emotions before following his line of thought. Zyro was trembling beneath Ullan's feet and her mind was scattered.

The connection was intimate, as though he were standing behind Iocina, guiding her hand. "There are ways to do this, large and small. The only limits to what you can do with an open mind are in your imagination. You can program her so that a snap of your fingers gives her insatiable desire, or that a whistle makes her crawl and beg. But as a beginner, make your motions subtle, unobtrusive. Let her be surprised at what you do.*

Iocina felt suddenly out of her depth, ::Master? Will you teach me?::

She felt his presence guiding her. ::You know how to get in. Now, map your own sensations in, then use the Force to guide you to the equivalents. Find your own fears, then let them give you her fears. Just sample them for now. Then we will make a small alteration.::

She thought about her fears and found many of them had faded, or changed. She no longer feared the dark side, or rather say she longer feared to submit to her own desires. She was afraid of Ullan but in a different way than when he'd made her grovel for him as he taunted Yuld after Vilargo. She feared failing him; next to him she felt small and inadequate.

From there, he guided her toward Zyro's fears. She had many of course, but Ullan towered above them all. In her mind's eye he loomed, impossibly tall, a dark figure coated in blood, with lightning crackling from his hands, his voice a demon's growl.

If I had a prayer to give, it would be 'Let me be the man my slaves think I am.' Anyway, we're going to weave in a small edit that she won't even notice until she goes to sleep tonight, and she'll have no idea where it came from. Grasp her blind, irrational fear, find her sense of loneliness, and throw in her sleep pattern. The goal is this: from now on she'll have an irrational fear of sleeping alone. She will only feel safe when sleeping in contact with another.

Iocina slid her hands up the side of Zyro's face and pressed fingers to her temples. There was no outward reaction, not even a twitch, as she worked.

When she was finished she felt oddly weary, and her own head pounded.

He shoved Zyro away with his feet. "Go find Alianne and tell her to find you something to do," he said. As she departed, he fastened his trousers and patted his lap. "Come sit down, Worm!" he said loudly.

She got slowly to her feet and complied, a sharp pain striking her between the eyes. She only half managed to channel it away but it persisted.

He pulled her against his chest, slipping into her mind. She felt him tasting her pain, reveling in it.

::I'd almost forgotten what that headache was like. It does lessen as you get used to it, until it's just a slight little ache. Which is better for concentration, if not enjoyment.::

She dropped her head back on his shoulder, and a quick half hidden thought flitted through her mind.

Has he done this to me? Does it matter? Not really, in the long run, but...

He chuckled in her mind.

::No, I haven't. This comes entirely from what is within you. I might alter you at some point, if it suits me or a need arises, but what you've become is simply what you were meant to be.::

I know, and I'll gladly accept whatever you want of me Master.

She lifted a hand to rub her forehead, "What are my duties today?" she asked aloud.

"You've got a new reading list, Darro's Cultural Ascension, Natothia's Fleet Tactics, and Eddol Kier's Jedi Triumphant. The last one is pure swill, but it's got some useful history in it, as well as a view of how the galactic citizenry often view the Jedi. There are expectations, which we set out to subvert. What stings the most of all things? Betrayal. A being never forgives it. We make them understand how the Jedi betray them with weakness and failure."

He rotated the chair back toward the starfield. "Speaking of, our target is Umatha. You might have heard of it."

She thought about it, "It does sound familiar, but. Hm."

The memory came to her, "Vrook's home?"

He nodded. "I and some pirates are going collecting, from a commercial/dockyard district. The world has no strategic value, there should be no defenses to speak of, and the symbolic value will be priceless. When we lift a few thousand new slaves from there, Vrook will either be forced to take part in a response, which will give us an opportunity to kill him. Or he'll decline because he has no attachments, and the Sith get the propaganda value of a pirate raid on the homeworld of a Council member with no retaliation from the Republic. Win-win. And slaves."

"That's nice," she purred, "I hope he does try to come to the rescue, but it would be almost as good for him to sit back and betrays his people through inaction as well," she sighed happily.

"You said you and the pirates, do I get to play too or do you have something else for me?"

He pinched her lower lip between thumb and forefinger, tugged on it, lifting her face to study the fresh scar she'd gotten there from their latest sparring session.

"Hm?" he finally said. "Oh, yes, I suppose you can tag along."

The feeling of his fingers on her lip made her wriggle slightly. While he hadn't changed her without her knowledge, her fascination with anything near or in her mouth had become almost distracting. She'd found herself holding parts and tools in her mouth as she'd worked over the past week, and even that had felt good.

"Master, I think I'll go do that reading now," she said, taking a deep breath and letting it out. The thought of trying to process the characters on a datapad with her headache wasn't something she was looking forward too, but she could always find something to do with her hands while she listened to the monotonous autoreader.

He tugged at her waist. "The proper way to phrase that is as a request, Worm. I haven't released you yet. My boots may need more polishing, after all."

Iocina went still, "Forgive me, Master. May I be released to perform my duties?" she said.

He bucked his lap, tossing her on the floor. "Carry on, worm. I'll summon you when you're needed."

"Thank you Master," she bowed, and left the cockpit quietly. She felt a faint sense of disorientation, it was too easy to forget her place at times. The easy banter she'd slipped into as they cut down droids and former Czerka miners wasn't the ordinary nature of things.

She collected the datapad and went to find something to work on while she listened to it.

I'm still a slave, a slave-apprentice yes, but still beneath my Lord's fist, she reminded herself, As I'm meant to be.

The journey passed uneventfully, another pleasant voyage of training, work, light sparring with the slaves as the ever-present obstacles.

"We're dumping from hyperspace in ten," he said as he entered her cabin. "Drop the book, be ready to man the gun.This is just the rendezvous, but you can never really trust pirates."

She tossed it onto the bed and went for the gun well, not bothering with the ladder as she dropped down.

She reached automatically for the targeting system but dropped her hand. The sensor array was really all she needed now that the blocker was out of her system, and it had been nearly rage inducing being forced to rely on it.

She powered up the console and waited.

They dropped into realspace amidst a cloud of pirate vessels. The armada was not as large and impressive as the one they'd first met a mere month or so ago, not all the crews and vessels being in range to divert for the planetary raid. He didn't patch her in to the comm lines, so she was not privy to the discussion. She could sense his eagerness, his anticipation, and some thrill as he likely was making menacing threats to his pirate cohort.

Then the ship slipped back into hyperspace.

"Ten minute jump," he said over the comm. "In theory, we shouldn't encounter defenses- the world has no strategic value and minimal armament. But do we trust theory?”

"No Master, that we don't," she agreed. She took the ten minutes to appreciate the view while he had a chance, almost a sort of meditation. She realized she hadn't meditated at all since finishing the last bits of her lightsaber. It wasn't that she'd ever been the type to meditate for hours a day, but she wondered now if she should be attempting it more often.

She watched the numbers swiftly tick over until she felt the hyperdrive disengaging. The hyperdrive ticked over roughly one and a half seconds early. Not a great amount of time, but a vast amount of difference when supraluminal travel was involved.

They emerged in a killing box. A line of Republic vessels ahead of them spat crimson bolts of death, catching ships seconds after they emerged from hyperspace. Further down the line, a ship with a pair of massive humps was the visual explanation of their premature exit- an interdictor vessel had cast a massive false gravity well over realspace, engaging the safeties of the ships of the fleet and dragging them from hyperspace.

AMBUSH.

The ship kicked over on its side, vacating a space that filled with a blasts from a frigate directly ahead of them. The fleet that was intercepting them was not large on the scale of the war being fought- a mere pair of frigates and the more respectable firepower of a cruiser.

Against a hodgepodge pirate armada that had no experience or skill operating in a large mass, pinned in by the menace of the interdictor?

Death ground.

::Shoot anything that you can bear on.:: he thought.

::Think Vrook foresaw this or are we just unlucky?::

The free-spinning turret swung about and she dropped into her mind, seizing the Force in as implacable a grip as her hands on the controls. She didn't try to pick fancy shots, just whatever would do the most damage to whatever ended up in her line of sight. Laser fire strafed across the cockpit of a small fighter, spacing the tiny figure within it. Three larger blasts from the lower mounted cannon destroyed the gun wells on another. She could feel cold sweat running down her back and over her breasts, soaking the stiff black material wrapped around her torso.

The metal around her neck was quickening with ripples and pulsing along with her rapid heartbeat. It should have been a distraction, but it felt encouraging. Motivating.

::We were betrayed. Survive now, sort out the suffering of those who have offended me later.::

When he opened the fleetwide channel, she was patched in to hear him speak. The ship spun and whorled, the motions frantically pushing the vessel to the limits of its ability to maneuver and accelerate, but his voice was calm and measured.

"Task Force Umatha, we are not going to die here. You will order your fleets precisely as I order and we are going to break these kriffing bastards. We have the preponderance of firepower, they are counting on our lack of coordination and organization to win this."

Truthfully, by her scanner whatever preponderance of firepower they might have had at the beginning of the fight was dwindling quickly, as expert gunnery on the part of the Republic was swatting ships from the sky.

"Nuvax, bring your ship around fifteen degrees and start laying salvos on the frigate designated Target Alpha. Allwyd, launch fighters to make torpedo runs on the cruiser..."

He continued giving orders even as they skimmed the surface of the nearest frigate, low enough that they were beneath the height of some of the gun emplacements. One of the fighters pursuing them smashed into a comm array, exploding in a spectacular fireball that rained shards down along the vast ship's hull.

She continued her rain of destruction, feeling sparks of light winking out all around them. She wanted to touch them, taste them, but didn't dare take even a small part of her consciousness away from the battle. She knew Ullan was doing so, but she didn't have the experience necessary to split her attention that way.

After a while the rout seemed to be turning, as the pirate's ships rallied and formed a straggling defensive formation rather than fighting every man for himself.

"I want every fighter formed on me," he ordered.

They had been dancing around the frigates for several minutes. The smaller Republic vessels had taken a beating, while his maneuvering of the fleets and neatly positioned the frigates between the pirates and the massive firepower of the cruiser. Now he called a formation of the pirate fighters, what few remained, and they formed in a chaotic cloud around the courier ship.

The ship itself had taken a beating. Her lights had died sometime minutes ago, but power to the turret remained and that was what counted.

"We're taking the cruiser," he said. "Full burn, every piece of ordinance you have. If you have torpedoes, fire them. If you have bombs, launch them. If you have cannons, shoot them. Follow my lead... NOW!"

The inertial dampeners had also taken a beating, enough so that when he firewalled the throttle, she was crushed back into her seat.

"All fleet vessels, concentrate fire on Target Beta. Fighters, hit that kriffing cruiser! WORM! Keep killing Reps!"

She didn't answer, just obeyed. For a millisecond she wished she's strapped in but she had no time now. Her hands might not have had the ability to buckle it, really, as they were locked around the controls and she'd likely have to open her fingers one a time to release them.

A fireball briefly blossomed directly in front of her until the minor amount of oxygen was snuffed out. She blasted through the shields of a fighter that seemed to have decided a suicide run was worth it to take out a Sith vessel. Her viewscreen was pelted with fragments that impacted and swept away as they continued on.

Ships blossomed into fire left and right around them as the massive firepower of the cruiser was unleashed. However, the pirate vessels had a higher-than-average compliment of torpedo-armed snubfighters for the precise purpose of crippling and disabling larger vessels. Many of the pirates, excited and terrified, fired their weapons off prematurely. Others never had the chance, as beams of coherent light ended their existence.

But still, a mass of over sixty torpedoes streaked toward the cruiser, far too many to deflect, evade, or shoot down.

Fire blossomed along its surface. and then a spread detonated directly across the bridge.

::I wonder who made that most incredible shot? A truly deft pilot, dashing, good looking, and incredibly modest, I am certain.::

The cruiser staggered under the massive volley of fire, shedding hull and bleeding oxygen into space. The guns fell silent, many of the cannons smashed outright, others lost when power was cut to their stations. The few that fired did so with no central control or coordination.

Another bright flare lit up behind them as one of the frigates blew, a lucky shot taking it directly in the engine interlinks. The final surviving frigate shivered and shuddered under fire as it turned away. Moments later it, and the interdictor, jumped to lightspeed.

She felt his relief flare along the link, followed by a fresh surge of killing anger. ::Now. There were three pirate lords who didn't respond to my call, and two others who sent ships and not themselves. I'm going to find out which one betrayed us, and then I'm going to spend a few weeks watching him, her, or it die.::

::Can I watch?:: her mind voice was a growl, and real vocalized one rumbled in her throat. She began the task of peeling her fingers from the controls, feeling as though the sticks should have the impression of her grip melted into them.

She flexed them, staring out into the shredded remains of ships and their crews. The only light was the soft blink of the sensor array and several gauges.

Climbing half out of the well she popped her head up, "What's the most vital damage I can get to work on?"

"We've got no deflectors whatsoever and haven't for five minutes now. Get that generator working. They're going to finish the cruiser, then I'm going to call a brief conference. Be ready to assume slave mode."

He twisted the ship through the sky. In the medbay, Zyro was tending to the others. Alianne with severe burns, Bronus had an ugly abdominal wound, and Zyro herself was favoring a broken arm. She looked up at Iocina helplessly.

She ignored them all, none of them looked like they'd expire any time soon and if they had no shields everyone could die anyway if any of the pirates decided to get above themselves.

The sound of the tool kit sliding across the deck was loud in the nearly echoing silence. The generator should have been loud, particularly as she was crawling beneath it. She quickly laid out all the tools she'd need in order beside her thigh and set to work, sliding out a few times to fiddle with the computer that linked the whole thing together. There was damage to the parts on the hull, she'd need to fix that as soon as she could get out there but she could make it work for now.

“Gonna be touchy, but I think it will hold long enough until we can do a full repair.” She said, ducking under his arm as he snapped a panel into place.

“It just needs to get us to a landing on the Xivon. It's about time for a new ride anyway. Now get into a slinky slave costume and stand by in the cargo bay. Remember, cool, calm, and collected. Getting ambushed by a Republic flotilla is just another day in the life for a Sith Lord. Which is not totally far from the truth.”

“I take it you've finally broken me to heel?” she asked, stripping as soon as she got into the corridor. She grabbed a towel and wet one end of it to scrub sweat and grime from herself, then slipped into another gown. She threw the dirty one in the compartment for Bronus to get to when she'd finished bleeding and went to wait.

She ran her hands through her hair and settled into the state of mind she'd not had cause to use in three weeks. It was easy, because deep inside of her she was a slave. She remembered thinking once that Bronus had been made to be a slave, but parts of Iocina were too. Maybe larger parts than she wanted to contemplate at the moment.

“Do you think there's a woman born that would take me more than two weeks to break in?”

He appeared a minute after touchdown, his stride quick but purposeful as he adjusted his cloak and straightened his hair. He tossed her the leash as he bluntly invaded her mind to borrow her vision and check himself out.

“Of course not Master,” she lowered her eyes, feeling her skin flush hot. Force she loved this, how had she forgotten how good this felt?

She obliged him by sweeping her eyes up and down him as she reached behind her head. There was a ring at the back of the collar for attaching the leash, and she offered him the free end.

She ran her hands down her body, easing the folds of the bodice till it lay correctly. There was the pinprick sting of what felt like thorns, and they burned where they broke her skin. She pressed on hand hard over her breast and felt a ring of them bite into her flesh. A soft sigh slipped from her mouth and she turned to face the ramp.

He yanked her forward with the leash and pressed his mouth down on hers, another violent, forceful kiss much like the first he ever gave her.

::We lived,:: He thought to her. ::thousands of others didn't.::

His hand pressed onto hers, a small tingle of electricity shooting through her, conducted perfectly by the metal thorns.

She returned his kiss just as hard, moaning into his mouth as the energy coursed down over her body. Each tiny bit of metal lit like fire against her skin making her gasp as they parted.

::We did,:: she thought, ::maybe next time I'll get to enjoy that second part more thoroughly.::

::It's all that matters in the end. We lived, they didn't. Now let's go bring some pirates to heel. They want to run now.::

He wrapped the leash around his wrist and strode off boldly. The flight deck was a scene of chaotic carnage, full of battered ships and broken bodies. This time no 'honor guard' awaited him, and he simply yanked her along down the hallways, which were littered with broken bodies.

He took her to the lift to the auxiliary bridge, the primary one having been shot off during the battle.

"Captain Rost," he said as he stepped out. "Congratulations on your promotion."

The scarred man looked up at him and offered a crooked smile. "Never saw the point in putting the bridge out there as the most obvious target."

She considered kneeling, but didn't want this filth thinking she knelt for him. Oh, she would if her Master wished it but only then. She instead fell into the pose she and Bronus had taken while walking through the Desarane, elegant and controlled, and two steps back on Ullan's left. The position gave him easy access to his weapon and freed his movement.

She tilted her head up and lowered her eyes, regarding the new pirate captain beneath her lashes.

"Well captain, you have the largest and most powerful ship, battered though it is. When you agree to press on, the others will fall into line."

"'When?'" the man quoted, then lifted his hand. "Not arguing, Lord Ullan. Admiring your certainty. We've lost half the fleet, every ship took a beating."

"If Umatha had anything to contribute to the fight they would've. They didn't, and here we are. We have a mission to finish. "

Iocina had the feeling that if Ullan hadn't been a terrifying Sith Lord this captain would have turned tail and run for the farthest reaches of the outer rim as soon as the interdictor had left the fight. She could see sweat beading fresh on his forehead and his military short hair had already been wet with it. He locked his hands in front of them, and she could sense he feared showing weakness through his trembling fingers.

"Look at it this way, captain. After this, your debt to me is discharged. You and your surviving cohorts go on about your merry business of pillage and loot. But if anybody abandons the cause before then, I will hunt them down and make them suffer, just as I will the one who betrayed us."

The final sentence came out as a spiteful croak that drove Rost back a step.

"Of course, my lord Ullan. I will turn my guns on any ship that tries to abandon the fight. "

"I want that Republic ship taken under tow," Ullan ordered. "And placed in a decaying orbit over Umatha. I want this day to scar their hearts, their bodies, and the kriffing landscape. Do you hear me!"

"Yes Lord! "

If you growl at him some more I think he might wet himself.

Hilarious as that would be, I need him to have enough command authority to pull this off. This ship will be taking my slaves back, since the Celestial Skinner got blotted by Alpha in the first salvo.

"You," he pointed to a random sensor tech. "Out."

He took her seat. "Give the orders captain, I'll watch from here."

Iocina did kneel then, gracefully taking her place beside his seat. The deck here was surprisingly clean, perhaps it had even seen the services of a cleaning droid or a slave in recent memory.

::Will we be going down to the planet or do you think they can manage?::

::A fast ride to a mildly hot LZ, the opportunity to sow chaos and destruction. Do you seriously think we're staying up here?::

Rost gave orders, threatening and cajoling the other captains into line. The stricken Republic vessel was taken under tow as the survivors made their way to Umatha.

::I was trying to be sarcastic, guess it didn't come through,:: a quick mental grin. Her face showed only a fearful reverence as she looked up at her Master. She watched out the viewport only at the corner of her eye.

"Rost, I'll be taking a spot on one of your transports."

"Of course, my lord. Will you be leaving your slave here, or with your ship?"

::I should leave you here, strictly for the amusement of you taking your boredom out on him and his crew.::

"No," Ullan said "the little animal will accompany me. So two spots, actually."

::It would be sort of entertaining to suddenly stand and take your seat here, but I'd much rather come down and hurt things with you. I really do need to have Bronus make some things for me to wear that will conceal a lightsaber. At least on this trip I won't be on a suppressant.::

“”If you really need a lightsaber I'll loan your mine. Best to practice not needing one. Jedi and Sith tend to be far too dependent on them.::

He sprang to his feet suddenly,giving the leash a hard yank. "I'll be down at the flight deck. Don't disappoint me, Rost. We're almost through with each other."

::Or so he thinks.::

She pretended to nearly fall but caught herself, flashing a long line of scarred thigh. She felt several eyes on her, mostly lustful, but the emotions of the tech Ullan had displaced was more amusing.

Pity. The woman felt sorry for her. Iocina slipped into her mind for a brief moment and saw a memory of herself, being dragged through the corridor of a ship looking freshly caught and only half broken. It had made the woman sad. She wished she had time to exploit that, and decided that one day she'd play a game like that with someone when she had the leisure.

Ullan, sensing what Iocina had gleaned from the woman's mind, turned back to her. With a flick of his wrist her pulled her into his arms.

"Worry about yourself," he whispered to her. "Because someday after I've used this one up, I'll need a replacement."

The woman made an inarticulate sound of fear, and Iocina sensed another locus of fear/anger from another source nearby. A male zabrak, hands clenched into fists. Her lover, likely.

She squirmed, struggling to be released, "Please, my Lord, let me go?"

He ignored her, glancing over at the Zabrak. "Are you willing to fight for your woman, insect?" he asked lightly.

He looked away, and she could feel his humiliation. This was a lovely and unexpected bonus. She felt the woman's utter despair as her lover backed away, abandoning her.

Ullan lifted her in the air, her arms and legs stretching out to the sides.

"Nobody here denies or defies me," he said. "Let this be a lesson to all of you."

Iocina widened her eyes as though terrified, but excitement made her mouth open slightly and she felt her skin grow warm. The woman shrieked, and the Zabrak looked as though he'd finally decided to rush forward. A human male gripped the back of his collar, holding him in place with a few hissed words his ear.

Slowly her clothes peeled away, the fabric curling around her sensuously, like a snake.

Ullan didn't even watch, keeping his eyes fixed on the Zabrak, daring him to make a move.

"If I weren't on a schedule, I would take the time to break her properly and make a good slave of her, like this one. But I have a planet to pillage," he said. He dropped the woman to the floor and marched away.

There was a slight scuffle as they walked away, someone holding the Zabrak back. No one else dared move as the woman whimpered on the floor until the Sith had disappeared through the door.

::That was a pleasant interlude, Master.::

::Power is its own righteousness. The weak exist for usage by the strong. She was weak. He was weaker. They'll both suffer for it, pirate crews are not terribly forgiving of weakness.::

The assault transport was nothing like the sleek contours of their courier ship, though they both seemed to be in a similar state of battered at the moment. He climbed aboard, seeming underdressed when surrounded by armed and armored troops from a dozen different species. It was almost a ridiculous sight, him in his dark robes, she in her skimpy slave costume, surrounded by a small army of pirates armed to the teeth.

He sat down and strapped in, patted the seat next to him, then stretched out his legs and relaxed back, eyes closed. She eased down beside him, crossing her legs and leaning into him. They existed in a bubble of fear, but also respect. Everyone had edged away to give the Sith room.

He pretended to fall into a nap as the ship launched, though she could sense his mind working continuously. He processed an amazing amount of data, keeping a keen eye on his immediate area, while also calculating furiously on future schemes and desires.

In his mind, Umatha existed both as a target to be plucked and a piece of history, a great tragedy that would resonate throughout the Republic. A failure, doubly so for the warning that had been given and the inadequate defense that had been mounted. And through all of that his hand found hers, trapping the pressure point by her thumb been his own thumb and forefinger, grinding down.

She pressed her legs together, gritting her teeth to keep from releasing any sounds of pain or pleasure. It was only a small amount of pain, comparatively, but it felt intimate being performed in front of so many beings. It felt nearly akin to being fondled in public.

Keeping a small compartment of her attention on Ullan's plotting thoughts, she let herself enjoy it.

The ship rattled down through the atmosphere, triggering a cascade of memories in him. He'd dropped down to do many worlds in vessels like this that they blurred into each other. Fear came with each, the moment of supreme vulnerability, when every gun was pointed skyward in the knowledge that each ship smashed was a great many less troops to fight when the landing came.

Fear, yes, but over time the other emotions evolved. Boredom, anticipation, eventually a hunger. For every landing was a battle, and battle was the greatest drug.

As his anticipation mounted Iocina rose to match it, this would be far different than half starved mad beings or a building full of unprepared bounty hunters. She feel everyone around her mentally preparing themselves, for not just battle but the promise of loot and the hope that they'd get to keep a few of the prettier slaves for themselves.

Touchdown. The others waited for his signal and a casual wave of the hand have them leave to surge from the craft. He had stretched his senses to read the surrounding area, and knew where he needed to go.

He reached up and unclipped her leash. "Since you don't have your usual rocks, you can use this."

He strode down the ramp, then stopped at the foot. She sensed it a second later. Jedi, at least two of them.

Well, that's another complication.

She wrapped the free end of the leash around one hand, leaving the heavy clip swinging free at her side. She gazed around, looking for the source of Ullan's animosity.

They had landed in a dockyard district, the old-fashioned kind that serviced surface craft that traveled across the water. Life on Umatha was primitive enough that they still utilized such vessels, in scales ranging from human-powered individual craft to large freighters and tankers. The ship rested in a vacant lot, surrounded by a labyrinthine maze of warehouses and docks. The pirates were spreading out, shooting and screaming, but a particularly loud series of cries indicated just where the Jedi were waiting.

He tossed his lightsaber over his shoulder a second before taking off in a dead sprint toward the sounds of battle.

She caught it, twisting it back into a shien grip and ran after him. Speeding her steps with the Force she caught up, running along just behind. She could feel them, a familiar rhythm in the Force that now thrummed unpleasantly instead of comforting.

Pirates were fleeing back toward them. "Stop!" he ordered, throwing the Force into the command. "Rally to me. We will handle this."

The Jedi that awaited them were a pair of Knights she'd known from her time as a padawan, both of them little older than her and freshly graduated to Knighthood.

The first, Urla Wek, was a Trandoshan female and a canny fighter who favored a double-bladed saber. The other, R'l'nch, was a spindly-limbed verpine more suited to mediation and negotiation than combat, but nevertheless wielded the lightsaber as any proper Jedi should.

Ullan had slowed down to a more dignified pace as the pirates began to gather back behind them.

"Children?" he said. "Really."

"Darth Ullan," R'l'nch said "let us end this without further bloodshed. Withdraw your forces, or we will be compelled to kill them."

"That will be an amazing feat, considering you will be dead before you can kill any more of them."

Urla triggered her lightsaber, a glowing blue blade. "There is but one Sith here and two of us."

Iocina emerged from behind Ullan to look over her old creche-mates. They were barely two years older than she was, even if they'd been knighted for years she doubted they could stand up to Ullan by himself. She resisted the urge to smile and wave cheerfully, keeping a cold expression as she settled her thumb over the activator of Ullan's saber.

She felt it when they recognized her, surprise and a small amount of sadness. She wondered if they'd even noticed she was missing, or been told she was wanted by the Council.

"Iocina!" Urla said, taking a step forward.

R'l'nch studied her, then touched Urla's shoulder. "She is lost."

Ullan turned his metal hand back toward his face, studying his fingers. "So in the interest of avoiding further bloodshed, you can surrender now. Or you can surrender after I've removed a few limbs."

"There is no emotion," Urla said, dropping into a ready position.

"There is peace," R'l'nch said, mirroring the motion. They would, under other circumstances, be formidable opposition. Here, they had no idea just how outmatched they were.

“We have our own little mantra. Well then..."

If Iocina hadn't been sparring against a ruthless Sith who had no qualms about beating her down and damaging her just short of dismemberment or death, either one might have been a match for her.

She flowed into a djem-so stance, as both Jedi favored defensive styles. She opened herself to the bond, feeding information to her master of their styles. And their weaknesses.

She flung herself at Urla, who had sounded heartbroken when she'd cried her name. She fell back instinctively and Iocina pressed her advantage. Rage blossomed in her chest as she felt a mind attempting to strike at her own, R'l'nch was trying to render her unconscious. She flung the leash between the Verpine's legs, a quick twist designed to bring him down.

R'l'nch stumbled, not quite coming off his feet, then whirled to meet Ullan's steady advance.

"Why?" Urla asked Iocina. "What did he do to you?"

She was very good, and began flowing through djem-so herself. Good, but she was not Ullan and she had not been taught so brutally as Iocina had. Training sabers and intensive sparring did not prepare one for war, and after a momentary resurgence she fell back on the defensive, her motions economical and unhurried as she tried to extend out and let Iocina overcommit.

"My Lord has remade me," she said, feinting to one side and sidestepping a counterfeint. There were two ways she could play this confrontation, and immediately decided against a merely physical combat. She wanted her old friend afraid.

She pretended to shake head faintly, letting doubt and fear rise into her eyes. She drew on the memory of her short time back in the temple, where she'd have readily stayed and been rehabilitated until the Council's betrayal. She wanted Urla to feel doubt, to consider the possibility that Iocina was being controlled against her will.

"I didn't want to die," she said, sounding frightened.

"You don't have to do this," Urla said, passing an opportunity for a riposte that might have actually accomplished something, attempting to work with her words instead. "We can protect you."

"I," she wavered slightly, "No! its too late for me!" She swayed slightly and let her face go blank as she went on the attack again. Just as she'd intended Urla was now concerned about hurting her, certain she could help Iocina.

*

Urla retreated, leading Iocina away from the Sith Lord. Her proximity to him needed to be minimized. For a brief moment she'd seen the human girl she'd trained with behind the flat dead gaze.

R'I'nch was wrong. Iocina was lost, yes, but she still survived beneath the tortures she could see had been inflicted on her body. Light flickered over the metal around Iocina's throat and she focused on it for a breath, barely managing to parry a wild blow. A Sith artifact, that must be the key to Darth Ullan's hold on her soul.

*

::Master, as much as I'd love to kill a Jedi and put myself out of my misery, would you like one to play with for a bit and test your theory about the Council's reaction to any escaped Jedi?::

::That was actually the notion I'd come around to. One moment while I-::

Suddenly Urla glanced over toward the other combatants. "R'l'nch!"

The Verpine was hanging limply in Ullan's grasp, his neck snapped by the relentless grip of Ullan's metal hand. Ullan turned suddenly and extended both arms, throwing a Force blast that hurled both Iocina and Urla into the wall beside them.

Iocina let Ullan's saber fall from her grip and propelled it toward him. She let out a whimpering cry, huddling in on herself.

Predictably Urla tried to stand, left leg dragging, and got between her and Ullan.

"Give her up Sith, she is not your prize and neither am I."

He snapped his lightsaber out of the air. "Are you strong enough to make that claim?" he asked. "You have one chance to earn your life."

He lifted Iocina up above them.

::Act like I'm choking you. Be persuasive or I'll choke you for real. Don't forget to kick your feet around.::

She left her arms dangling limp, clutching her throat felt a bit over the top. Instead she extended her neck back, making a wet sound. She kicked and gagged eyes wide with terror and locked on Urla.

"Damn you Ullan! Free her!"

He chuckled and hurled her directly at Urla's extended lightsaber, making the Jedi weave aside at the last moment as Iocina slammed down at her feet.

"You seem the steady sort," he said. "Perhaps you would make a better and more faithful apprentice."

He suddenly flipped through the air toward her, blade lashing out, pressing her with a wild series of swings and thrusts, classic Juyo form.

Iocina went limp, breathing shallowly and quieting her mind to feign near unconsciousness.

*

Urla could barely hold onto her blade as the Sith's weapon crashed down, driving her back against the wall. She tried to release her fear, fear of death or falling as her friend had, fear for that friend who lay so still and silent.

If I die here she'll have no hope of rescue, and it truly will be too late to save her, she thought. She could feel herself weakening and tried to go on the offensive but it was too little and too late.

As she attempted to go back onto the offensive, he clubbed her alongside the head with his metal forearm, driving her to her knees. She feebly raised her blade in defense, only to see him snatch onto it with his gauntlet, crushing the emitter. The shaft of the blade exploded in her hand, taking the hand with it as it disintegrated.

He kicked her in the chest, slamming her back against the wall, and danced the blade in front of her face.

"Yield."

She closed her eyes for a long moment, shunting the pain away and closing her mind to it. Oh, 'Cina, is this how he took you?

She opened her eyes and watched Iocina's chest rise and fall irregularly. She had to have the hope that she could get herself and the small fragile looking human away from the Sith.

She looked up the length of the blade and nodded once.

He raised his metal hand and shot a bolt of electricity directly between her eyes, rendering her unconscious. Once she was incapacitated, he crouched down and jammed an injector into her neck, shooting her full of neuroblock.

"You can quit laying about," he told Iocina. "And you!" He rose and shouted at the pirates. "Get back to work! This world isn't going to loot itself and those slaves aren't going to just show up and ask to be taken!"

"Yes Master," Iocina rolled back onto her shoulders and flung herself up onto her feet. She summoned the dead Jedi's lightsaber to her fist and wrapped the flung leash around her hips to clip the hilt in place.

He used the Force to grab Urla's ankles and began dragging her along the ground back toward the transport. "Go join the fun," he told her. "I'm going to make sure of our new prize."

She grinned and jogged away to join a group of pirates who stared at her incredulously as she snapped of an order to follow her.

A couple of hours later she was securing the last two captives on one of the transports. She'd had to stop the pirates from loading too many in each one; she didn't think her master would be pleased with her or them if some of their new laborers suffocated before they could be put to use.

She hopped into another transport full of pirates headed back to the ship her Master's ship was docked on.

The mood of the pirate fleet was decidedly mixed. She could sense the bitterness, the agony over the beating they'd taken at the hands of the Republic, and their bitterness at the Sith who'd driven them straight into the fire.

But on the other hand, they'd won. They, a group of no-account pirates, had turned back a (minor) Republic flotilla, shattered it utterly. And then they'd gotten their share of pillage, loot, and rapine, a process that was still going on as they returned to orbit, and promised to carry on for weeks afterward.

The Republic cruiser they'd shattered during the attack glowed red as it began to reenter. The angle had been cunningly chose- the ship would be largely intact when it hit the ground, creating mass devastation both where it hit and on a global scale. There would be survivors, but Umatha would never be the same.

"Citizens of Umatha," the transmission began, showing Ullan back sitting comfortably on the auxiliary bridge. The message was broadcast across all channels, including those to the vessels coming back up to orbit. He sat in the captain's chair, and she noted that the sensor tech he'd violated sat chained at his feet, her face aimed at the ground.

"I am Darth Ullan of the Sith. You may wonder why such misery has come to your little worthless world. You may thank Master Vrook Lamar of the Jedi Council. It was from the worthless loins of some grazing barve on your world that he emerged, undoubtedly the seed of some wretch who did not even deign to leave a tip on the nightstand before departing. It is for the crimes of Master Vrook that you suffer. It is for the crimes of Master Vrook that I have unleashed my fleet upon you. It is for the crimes of Master Vrook that I have taken your sons and daughters to serve me unto the death, such as this miserable little creature here."

The holocam closed in on on the woman's face, streaked with grime and tears, her eyes hollow as she stared at the floor.

"I would like to take this moment to thank the council for donating another follower to me. I am sure that the former Jedi Knight Urla will make an excellent apprentice."

The holocam shifted once more to his hooded visage. "For the citizens of Umatha, I give you this. Spend the next twenty-three minutes holding your loved ones and praying to your pathetic, useless gods, because death is coming."

He waved a hand and the transmission cut.

"Don't ever make a Sith mad," one of the pirates agreed.

"That weren't no Umathie," another one protested. "I know her, she's from the bridge crew!"

"Don't matter none! He's Sith, he can do what he wants."

Iocina walked forward to kneel on Ullan's other side, face impassive. Three of the crew watched her uneasily, they'd been part of the force she'd taken control of and they didn't know what to think of her now.

::How is my old friend?:: she asked mentally, ::I will gladly take a savage beating and live chained for awhile if you command Master.::

::I'm keeping her under until we make arrangements for departure. And then, yes, we get to have some fun.::

He nudged the sensor tech with his boot. "You missed a spot."

Her eyes dead and dull, she began licking it clean.

::Such a nice little find. I don't care to keep her, but she's been amusing. Do something terrible to her mind before we depart.::

Iocina smiled and reached over Ullan's legs to run her fingers through the woman's hair. Her terror was at the forefront of her mind and it was easy to sift through. ::You find you like this, so much so that you'll do it for anyone at any time. You'll beg for it, just as you'll beg to be taken by every man on this bridge as soon as Lord Ullan departs. Afterward you'll lick up every drop spilled from between your legs. Tomorrow, when you wake, you'll remember everything you've done and know how you made yourself a slave.::

A violent shudder ran through the tech, then she began to moan softly as she licked fervently along Ullan's boot. The man next to her twitched, staring down at her as she raised her bottom in the air and slid a hand between her legs.

Ullan shoved the woman away forcefully. "Enough, you crazy little slave whore. Go find someone else to bother with your needs."

He rose to his feet, stretching. “I think I did fairly well with that speech. Good and sinister. Come along, let's go watch a world take a brutal beating. But unlike Malak, we leave survivors to spread the fear.”

His walk had something of a swagger in it as he marched toward the viewscreen, where the Republic cruiser began to make its terminal dive.

"Hm. Unpredictable orbital dynamics. They only had fifteen minutes or so instead of twenty-three. Hope they've made those last moments count."

The ship was beyond visual range, but an orbiting corvette had it in visual sensor distance and tracked it all the way down, until it slammed into one of the few large cities on the world, triggering a violent fireball that arced back up toward space.

"Captain Rost," he said.

"Yes Lord Ullan?" the man approached him timidly, awaiting some form of censure.

"Excellent placement. You just killed over eight million people."

::I wonder what little Zyro would make of that,:: he mused to Iocina.

::Do you want to find out?:: she smiled, feeling pain and fear break over her like a tidal wave. She wondered it, even unconscious, Urla was experiencing this somehow. She hoped so, but wouldn't count on it. It would probably still be fun to show her a recording of the event.

::I think this is better than the taste of that neurotoxin victim you promised me Master.::

::I think this is like a drug to Malak, and the reason he prefers to eradicate entire worlds. But as you noted then, it's generally wasteful. One should only do it to useless backwaters like this, and then only when there is a distinct purpose in mind.::

Suddenly he extended his arms, and rivulets of lightning slithered from his fingers. He turned back to the bridge crew with a malicious smile. "You can all tell your misbegotten spawn that you were here the day that Umatha died because it had offended a Lord of the Sith. Tell the tale of what happens when you cross a Darth, for the rest of your pathetic little lives."

::Having made nice with our allies, it is now time to depart.::

He whipped out a hand, summoning her leash, which uncoiled and snapped into his palm. With a summary yank, he departed the bridge.

She hid a grin as the three pirates who'd watched her fight looked on, especially at the stolen Jedi's lightsaber dangling from the leash between Ullan and his slave.

On the ship the three slaves looked better than they had before, nicely patched up by the good doctor. I'll have to tell her next time to put aside her tender care for others and think of herself first, at least when it comes to anyone other than her Master and myself in that order. she thought.

He looked around the battered ship. Urla was out cold in a force cage, and the rest of the ship was a maze of tangled cables and damaged components. Bronus and the others were cleaning up what they could, but lacked the technical knowledge and carefully avoided anything that looked like it might need a more experienced eye.

"Get to work," he said. "I want us spaceworthy within four hours. We'll launch, then we'll wake up the Jedi and start having some fun."

Iocina went to where she'd left the tool kit, Do I have time to get out on the hull before we head out? I think something on the deflector grid is just loose. She did a quick walkthrough of the ship, making mental notes of what needed to be done now and what could wait until they were in hyperspace. It looked as though a great deal of it could wait, it was just inconvenient and not life threatening.

Get out there and fix it. I'm going to fix the primary hyperdrive coils, they got trashed hard. The ship really needs a full dockyard treatment, but we're not going to get that here with a crew of pirates.

Iocina went back out and clambered up an access ladder. She'd been right, the damage to the generator was caused by wreckage smashing into it once the shields had popped. She had to go in and out twice to make sure it was connecting to the computer again, and once more just in case.

Back inside, she wiggled into a small access panel and set to work on one of the half dozen other vital things that had to be repaired before they'd be able to get the hells out of the filthy docking bay.

I think I've got what's important Master, the rest can wait. A couple of minor things we might need parts for if I can't fix the fiddly pieces on my own, she thought at him, wiping yellow grease from her fingers on a cloth.

Right then. Now to mark you up a bit, then stick you in a cage.

He approached her from behind, stepped around and beckoned for her to get up. "Zero, collect the tools and put them away."

Zyro shuffled along, grabbing the scattered tools and putting them back in the kit.

"Should I strip, Master?" she asked, rolling her shoulders and loosening muscles gone tight while she was wedged into close quarters.

"I think... tatters," he said. "More effective. And appealing."

She nodded, "That will happen along the way, unless you want something specific done with it," she peeled the bodice back and couldn't keep a very soft moan from escaping her mouth. The metal teeth were hooked into the flesh everywhere they'd touched and she had to pull them out. Pinpricks of blood welled up on her skin.

He chuckled at her response. Behold my creation.

Then he punched her, right over the eye.

The beating was brief and not as brutal as it could have been, given that the objective was cosmetic damage. In the process, he tore at her flimsy costume, leaving her only shreds of apparent dignity.

Lifting her up, he tilted her face to the left and right to study the results, then nodded with satisfaction. He drew her into his mind so she could see herself, a frightful horror with swollen eyes, bloody nose and lip, a cut along her cheek.

"Perfect."

She nodded, smirking. The effect was somewhat gruesome. “Any instructions for my part?” she asked, “ I did my best to infer you're controlling my mind somehow, probably through this,” she touched her collar.

“Go with that. We'll play the moment. Pretend you're Force-blind as well now, as part of your punishment.”

He grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and lifted her to her tiptoes to march her to the cage. She was roughly deposited within, then the cage sprang to life around her.

“Hm. Wonder what this button does...”

Suddenly the floor gave the sensation of being red-hot. No heat was being implied, it was simply nerve induction, but the sensation of burning heat remained all the same.

“Oh yes. Hm. Dance for me, Worm.”

At first she only writhed, but eventually even she came to the end of the pain she could channel into lust and began to scream. She could feel his enjoyment of her agony and just allowed herself to whimper and struggle against the bottom of the cage. No matter if she'd gone beyond feeling pleasure, it was enough then that he enjoyed it.

All the tiny marks from the thorns streamed thin trails of blood down her body, soaking into the rent fabric and streaking her dusky skin red.

He dialed the induction back until it was merely uncomfortably warm anywhere her skin came in contact with the floor.

“I'll be going now. Ping me when she wakes up so I can watch the conversation. This is going to be hilarious.”

It took awhile before Urla began to stir and Iocina curled up with her face buried in her knees. She positioned herself as though she were trying to hide her nakedness, but any movement would bare a scandalous amount of skin.

Master? She's waking up a bit.

#

Urla bit back a hiss of pain as her eyes were assaulted by bright light. She kept her nearly transparent set of inner eyelids closed to filter some of the glare as she sat up. Her severed hand was locked into a silver medical sheath, and as she'd expected she'd been given nothing to block the pain. Her body ached with cold and she saw she was in a force cage. The floor glittered with a sheen of frost, cold seeping into her scales. She reached automatically for the Force to bring warmth and found an aching void. A Force inhibitor then.

A soft whimper nearby turned her around. Iocina, looking nearly as bad as she did herself. She'd been badly beaten, her black gown was shredded to pieces and bloodied. The cloth hadn't covered much to begin with, but now it barely concealed the human's mammary glands and slit. The floor beneath her glowed faintly red orange and she could see Iocina shifting uncomforably, humans were as sensitive to heat as they were cold.

"Iocina," she whispered, even that quiet word sounded loud in the room they were in. It looked like the cargo bay of a ship, but in the humming cage she couldn't tell if they were moving.

"Iocina please, are you alright?"

The human raised her head and revealed a bruised and battered face. Urla hissed in sympathy and swore in her own tongue.

"I can't talk to you," Iocina said in a strangled voice, "He'll hurt you, and I'll have to watch. He's done it when his slaves talked to me too," she looked wildly about as though looking for a witness, "They tell him everything."

"Don't talk, then. Just listen. I'm going to get you out of here." How, precisely, she would accomplish that feat she had no idea. But the Force would show her a way. The Sith Lord had not slain her, and that would be a mistake she vowed to make him pay for.

There is no emotion, there is peace, she repeated in her mind. She would not feel fear, nor passion, nor other emotions. Even if she could not touch the Force, it could not help but touch her, and she would be open to its will.

"I already," she bit her lip, "Hivvis rescued me, he took me back home. Truli died trying to save me. But," she his her face, "I ran away and came back. It sounds mad, it is mad. Why would I do that?" her voice quickened and rose slightly then she slapped a hand over her mouth and sobbed.

"R'l'nch said it wasn't too late for you," she said "and he could see into souls. There is still light in you, Iocina."

"Now, I need for you to stay strong and be ready for the opportunity," Urla continued. "When we leave, we leave together."

She watched Iocina, steeling her heart against sympathy. Sympathy was an emotion, and worse than useless in this instance. Whether or not the padawan could be trusted, she needed to be brought back, that had been made clear in Ullan's capture order.

Ullan. She shook her head, remembering the duel. None of the masters had ever challenged her like that. She wondered if any of them could even compete.

They had to be able to. He was merely one Sith, and Malak had a growing army.

"Why did it have to be you?" she whispered, "I thought it would be easy. I've... he's made me do things. I was supposed to kill Hivvis and I couldn't do that. He wanted me to kill you and I refused. All I can see is darkness Urla, there's nothing left."

She curled herself tighter then gasped, releasing her knees and clutching a wound in her side. "Vrook... he wanted to," she closed her mouth and looked away.

"The Force is speaking to you," she said. "It won't let go of you. The light calls to you."

"Does it now?"

Ullan made his entrance, dramatically sweeping aside his cape. "Ah, my old slave and my new slave. I think, by the time this is done, there shall be only one slave."

She copied Alianne's frightened movement when she'd been caged here. She backed into the force field and cried out as she was slammed to the floor, body wreathed with electricity.

"Please Master, don't hurt her please!"

"Would you rather I hurt you then," he said to Iocina.

"She's a mere padawan," Urla said. "I am a Jedi Knight. I am not afraid, for there is no emotion..."

"...blah blah blah blah blah," he said mockingly. "One thing I've seen a great deal of is fear among the Jedi. That fear is what kept us from striking as one hand against the Mandalorians. That lack of unity is what made us turn to the old ways. The Council created this monster, and now they send young fools like you out to die at our blades. Much as that insect, what was his name?"

Urla clenched her jaw shut, refusing to give an answer and satisfaction. He looked over to Iocina. "Do you know the insect's name, Worm?"

She shook her head, then fell to her knees clutching her temples, "R'l'nch, Master," There was a spark of fear, kindled and nearly snuffed out from the Trandoshan, although she showed none in her body language.

"Runch? Relinch?" He waved his hand to dismiss the topic. "He was a fool who thought he could challenge me. Now he's a dead fool. There is no one alive who can match my power. The Jedi and the Republic have only begun to see the merest glimmerings of what I have learned from the ancient masters."

Let me know if I start going too overboard with the mad Sith routine.

"Now you, lizard being..."

He stepped up to the force cage. "You yielded to me. You wish to live, no?"

Iocina watched Urla flinch, she'd yielded to buy time she could use to escape and take the fledgling Sith with her to save her from Ullan and the dark side.

Urla tensed, "Yes," she said simply. She didn't want to betray herself or the human girl, but she needed to survive. Her people were survivors, yes, but she wouldn't compromise her morals if she didn't have to.

"One of you will live, and one of you will die. You may think you know your choice on this matter now, but we'll give a few days to think it over."

He gestured and the cage began pulsing low-grade electrical current through the floor in random locations.

"Now, as for you my little failure of a slave..." he turned to Iocina.

Urla grimaced and bore the pain. She was strong, she could take it. Humans were soft and weak, so many vulnerable places on their bodies without any natural armor to protect them. She had always known this, but now the thought frightened her.

Iocina had said Ullan had tortured slaves in front of her merely for the sin of listening to Iocina speak to them. This was his plan, to torture Iocina and force her to watch. It was a hideously effective strategy against a Jedi trained from birth to shield the weak.

#

Iocina hid her face in her hands and grinned, hiding it with a sob. She collapsed into the full submission, shoulders shaking. She began to babble apologies, never really making sense just the first drivel she could invent.

He lifted her into the air, her head brushing the metal emitter at the top of the cage, and forced her arms to splay out, which made her chest thrust forward. Slowly, inch by inch, she floated toward the wall of force.

::Beg her to not let me do this to you.::

"Please, don't, Urla! Help me, please don't let him do this. I can't do this again!" Her voice began strong but weakened as she was inexorably dragged forward. This was going to hurt, electricity always did, but it would be nothing compared to Sith lightning as she'd imagined before.

Urla's claws scraped her thighs, eyes locked on the scene. Her lips and tongue shaped the words of the code over and over in rapid succession. He'd said they'd have days to decide who lived or died. Was he going to hurt Iocina or kill her now out of caprice? She wasn't certain she could chance it.

"Stop," she said flatly, then hissed, "please."

Iocina hovered, her breasts tantalizingly close to the energy field.

"First lesson, slave. You end with 'Master' every time you address me. Now make your request in the proper form."

Iocina's nipples began to stretch out, as if questing for the electricity.

Iocina forced tears to spill down her cheeks, it felt as though the terrified Padawan Denara was something she could pull out and channel at need and then put away till it was necessary again. She just cried, knowing how breaking down would affect the young Knight.

Urla gritted her teeth, biting back the words until static electricity had begun to curl around the human girl's mammary glands. Finally she glared at the Sith, "Please, Master, stop hurting 'Cina." she tried to sound sincere and was ashamed at the anger in her heart.

"And what do you have to offer me in exchange?" he asked. "I would take your hand, but there wasn't much left. Some scraps on Umatha. No, I need something more."

::Warn her that this is how it begins. Let her think that she will be stronger, that she will succeed where you failed.::

"No! Don't listen to him, that's how it starts. He takes pieces of you and uses them against you. I only lasted a few days like that, I'm trying to fight but," she choked off her words as though he'd shut her up.

Urla growled, "What do you want Sith?"

He slammed Iocina into the wall of the cage. Both the shock and the impact were brutal.

"Improper form of address," he said. "For every time you fail me another will suffer, slave."

He dropped Iocina. "I have other slaves as well. Maybe I'll trot them out."

Urla watched Iocina twitch on the floor of the cage, a few wounds on the soft brown body had opened and every spasm spread blood on the floor.

"Wait!" she clenched a fist, "What do you want of me, Master?" she hated giving anything away during a negotiation, it was why R'l'nch had been in charge of their mission.

"Now you have to beg forgiveness. In the posture she was in before, beg me to overlook your failings, or spend the rest of the day listening to her scream."

Iocina waited a moment, watching the Jedi from beneath half slitted eyes. She could feel the conflicting emotions rising and breaking against her carefully erected well of calm.

Urla hesitated for too long and Iocina began to writhe again, making little gasping pain sounds.

This costs me nothing but pride, Urla thought unhappily, and pride is of the dark side, she sank to her knees and imitated the groveling position.

"Please, Master, forgive me for my pride. I... beg you to not harm Iocina for my own mistakes." her chest tightened and she felt her slow blood heat with a stirring of anger. She shoved it down, knowing that this was what he wanted.

The cage faded around Urla. "Crawl to my feet and beg me again," he ordered. "Crawl slowly, you alien trash."

Iocina hid her face, opening herself to the feelings washing over her from Urla. Fear, anger, despair. All shoved away as though they were poison. Which they were of course, particularly to a Jedi. She rolled onto her side, eyes wide and frightened as she opened her mouth as though to speak and was unable. She just wanted to watch.

Urla's scales rippled in agitation as she slowly exited the cage and inched her way forward. Trandoshan bodies were not made for crawling on hands and knees, and she only had one hand besides.

"Please, Master, forgive me for my pride. I beg you to not harm Iocina for my own failings." she repeated, voice steadier than the first time but rough with pain and tightly controlled emotions.

He lifted his boot and planted it firmly on the back of her head. "You worthless, mewling slave. See how weak the Jedi made you? See how powerless you are now? Where is your ally, the Force?"

She tensed, her slow pulse quickening, There is no emotion there is the Force, she recited, but in her heart she felt the stir of anger and despair. Iocina had the kindest of their initiate clan, but Urla had always been too quick to anger and too slow to forgive. She was afraid. All she could do was pray for rescue unless somehow a chance of escape presented itself.

She tried to shift away from the heavy weight on her head, but the pressure only increased.

"Crawl back to your cage, filthy slave animal. We will continue this discussion later. Meditate on your shame and your failure. Meditate on the death of your friend and the defeat of the Jedi Order. And remember, whenever I give you an order, you affirm that you heard it, slave."

Urla lifted her head and glared, then lashed out at him with her claws. She instantly felt regret, and tried to pull the blow. She was not like him, though he'd provoked her into anger she shouldn't have attacked.

He sidestepped the attack and hurled her back into the cage, the field activating the second she thumped down.

"Very good," he purred. "But still, you do not attack your master without consequences, animal."

The air in the cage began to chill as he spoke. "I'll let you think on your failings for a while, then come back to deliver your punishment. You will beg for it when the time comes."

Urla kept her tongue between her teeth. She wanted to tell him she would never be his slave, and he was not her master. But Iocina was lying limp in her cage, and was helpless to even fight back if the Sith decided to take his ire at her rebellion out on the little human.

::Would it be better to stay in here or to be dragged away to be tortured some more? From personal experience there's not much more frightening to a young Jedi than Force lightning,:: amusement leaking through.

::Hm. Excellent suggestion,:: his mental voice purred

Iocina's cage dropped open. "Come to me, slave. You will pay the price for Urla's disobedience."

Urla closed her eyes. If she hadn't intended to meditate on her failure she would now. She opened her eyes, if this was her doing the least she could do was bear witness.

Iocina got to her hands and knees and slowly crawled out, making her arms tremble as though she could barely hold herself up.

"Yes... my," she whimpered, "my Master." When she reached his feet she appeared to hesitate and then pressed her mouth to his nearest boot. She heard a soft hiss behind her and sensed a fresh surge of anger and disgust. Urla was telling herself that she wouldn't be brought so low.

"Beg me to punish you for the Jedi slave's failings," he ordered her.

She shook her head no, then paused and swayed to one side. In a flat emotionless tone she said, "Please, my Lord Ullan, I beg you to punish this slave. It is my weakness to blame for not slaying her, I must be punished for my failure. I desire to be punished as an example."

Urla shifted uneasily. The collar, from here she could see the strange metal flowing unceasingly around Iocina's neck. It matched the gleaming surface of Ullan's prosthetic. Sith sorcery then. It explained everything. She wanted to speak, to try and help the human to free her mind, but it would surely bring down the wrath of the menacing Sith towering over her.

He shot her with a tendril of Force lightning, sustaining the arc between them, the arc staying focused unerringly on the small of her back no matter how she moved or convulsed.

"This is what you've done, slave," he said to Urla. "And every act of disobedience from you will see both your own suffering and the suffering of another. I have several thousand slaves aboard my ships, I could space a few each time..."

Iocina shrieked and thrashed, no matter how many times she experienced this she found no way to channel the agony into bliss. Something inherent in the power prevented it, making this torture entirely unfeigned.

Urla covered her face with one hand and swore softly, All my fault, all mine, for my pride, she thought.

"Please," she bit out, then raised her voice to be heard over Iocina's helpless screams, "Please, Master Ullan, forgive my disobedience and do not punish others for my transgressions," she said. She wanted to scream herself, or more satisfyingly to hit something. My fault.

"No," he said coldly. He stopped the current and left Iocina whimpering at his feet. "Come along worm, your torment is just beginning.

She lay twitching on the deck for a moment, completely honest in her inability to move. When she had control of her limbs again she got to her hands and knees and began crawling.

"Thank you," she gasped, "Master, for... for instructing your worthless slave whore." That last word was a calculated cut, and behind her Urla gave in to a momentary fury. She slashed at the electrostatic wall and hissed in pain and rage.

Beautiful. She's soiled even when we let her go. Forever damaged and broken.

He snapped his fingers for her to follow at her heel and led her from the room.

Once they reached the medbay he sat down and patted his lap while reaching out to turn on the monitor in the cargo bay.

“We'll give her the occasional theatrical scream, I think,” he said.

Iocina had to brace herself to climb into his embrace, she could feel muscles twitching in aftershocks through her body.

“I could always scream a few times in the usual way,” she said, “and then begin other sorts of screams. I am your slave whore after all Master.”

“That was my intention, yes.”

On the screen they watched Urla suddenly throw herself at the field, only to be violently repulsed.

"It's going to chill to minimum survivable for a Trandoshan," he murmured in Iocina's ear. "Let's wait until she settles down a moment, then give her a scream. There. There,"

Finally Urla began to try to fold herself into a meditative posture. The moment she seemed to find some balance, her chuckled, "Give it to her."

Iocina took in a breath, let it out, and drew in as much air as she could. She split the air with a ragged shriek, a hideous sound that could only have been caused by the most vile of dark side tortures. She shrieked twice more, each somewhat softer than the other.

She slapped a hand over her mouth afterwards, shoulders quivering as she held in a laugh, “How was that?”

“Musical. You'd best not be faking it when I torment you,” he said.

His hand found the damage done by her costume, roughly kneaded the skin as Urla leapt to her feet once more. He pulled Iocina’s head aside to kiss at her scratched flesh, nipping at it with his teeth.

She leaned into it, the good pain driving some of the less pleasant aches away. Tiny drops of blood welled from the half dozen places his teeth scraped across. She dropped her head back against his shoulder, giving him more access.

“What's she doing now?” she asked, not at all in a position to watch the screen herself.

“Clenching her fist. She started to punch the cage, then stopped; if she had enough room to pace she would,” he mused, “And... start moaning, loudly.”

His hand slipped between her legs, teasing, toying.

She'd been on edge for days, and still had no hope of release. It was nearly becoming a constant exquisite pain, something she had to suffer through every waking moment. She'd woken more than once with her own hands between her legs. She whimpered, then began to moan and cry out.

"Please!" she almost screamed, "Master!"

He matched them with his own theatrical grunts and moans, which were entirely out of character from what she'd seen. His sexual drive was silent, intense, predatory.

Urla wailed, the sound somewhat muted by the cage, a terrible sound of anger and anguish.

“Oh, let's keep this up,” his metal fingers dug into her thigh, scratching down bruises and leaving thin lines that began to redden and then bleed. 

"No! Stop!" she screamed again, a howl of pain and fear tearing from her throat. By the end of this she'd probably lose her voice, but that too could be something to play with. Coming from her, ‘no, stop,’ generally meant, ‘more, please.’

She could feel Urla, her fear and pain was a delicious and it drove her to rock her hips against her master's hand.

She felt his laughter in her mind, his relishing of the torment both she and Urla were suffering. Broadening the scope, they could sense Zyro's fear, Alianne's delight, and Bronus, coolly cleaning the ship, content in her duties and not being in the spotlight.

As Urla wailed again, Alianne pinned Zyro against the wall, forcing the other woman's hand between her legs.

“Such a symphony. Imagine when we have an entire world.”

He made a loud sound of release.

“One more scream, some pathetic weeping, then it's back to the cage for you,” he said, “and I won’t let Alianne at you this time.”

She obliged, nearly sobbing once it was echoing down the corridor. She sagged against him, a knot of misery and need making her shiver all over. "Please," she whispered, truly begging this time.

“No. When it happens it will be the greatest day in your life and the day you are truly born. It must come in pain and trial and be earned. It's the only way you grow,” he said, his tone mocking but eyes dark and serious.

He tore the rest of her costume away, casting the rags on the floor for Bronus to clean, then bounced to his feet and donned an expression of smug satisfaction as he led her back to the cargo bay. As they passed through the corridor, drops of blood ran down Iocina’s leg and left bloody half-footprints in her wake.

Yes Master, she thought, wanting to shove her feelings away. She knew better. She imagined what it could be like to finally be beneath her Master and embraced them instead.

She wrapped her arms around herself, hunching her shoulders as she'd done the first night she'd been naked in Ullan's presence. She didn't think the Trandoshan would notice the physical reaction she was having to this torment but she didn't try to conceal it either.

Urla screamed when he came back in. "You monster!"

"I am," he agreed. "One the Order did not equip you to fight. Jedi are peacekeepers," he intoned. "Guardians of order. Neutered, safe, tame little pets. Seven hundred of us followed Revan into the fight when he first left. Against hundreds of thousands of Mandalorians. You know how many are left from that group? Less than a hundred. I can name them all, and tell you where most of them are. We weren't ready for a war, any of us."

As occasionally happened, he wove the truth, and his bitterness at that truth, into his words. "But the survivors, and those who came after, those we trained? We know war. I would take any of them to battle with me. Your Jedi Order? Pathetic in comparison. This worm? She bowed to me without even fighting. Your insect friend? I didn't even need a lightsaber to kill him."

He flicked his hand and hurled Iocina into her cage. "You are weak, animal, because your teachers made you weak. The reason you grovel before me and my power is because the Jedi Order is a dying beast. We will kill them all, and you can decide to die weak, a slave, or live strong."

Iocina curled in the bottom of the cage, wrapping one arm over her breasts and putting the other protectively between her legs. She whimpered, her throat noticeably hoarse.

Urla stared at her, horrified. He was right, she wasn't prepared for this. None of them were, and no one was going to be able to explain the depravities the Sith were capable of. She shied away from his final words, turning her head away with clenched fists. She had no good arguments for his accusations.

Iocina wanted to laugh, to roll on her back and give a delighted giggle even. ::Oh Master, if you let her escape I'm not sure if she'll even go back to the temple.::

::Win win either way. Whether or not Revan is dead, I remain his agent of chaos.::

"One other thing."

He waved a hand, bringing a monitor to life. On it, Urla groveled and begged at his feet.

"I'm sure the council will love this. Vrook is probably collecting them for his private pleasures."

Urla screamed, unable to articulate her fury. At this moment she was desperately grateful for the Force suppressant, the dark side was closing in around her and she didn't know how to fight it. If she'd been enmeshed in the Force now it would be too late for her. This whole war was tearing the universe apart and this was just a small piece of the destruction. She was caught in it and it was swiftly chipping her away like a sandstorm stripping carrion of flesh.

Through her storm of anger and fear Iocina's broken sobs stabbed into her. The human had been rescued once, but was already so enslaved to the Sith she'd escaped the temple and gone back to him. She wasn't sure how long he'd had her in his grasp before the rescue, but it hadn't been long. How long will it take me to fall? The question is no longer if, but when, unless I can find a way to die first.

"You won't die," he mocked her. "All life and death belong to me, animal."

He laughed cruelly as he walked away.

Urla scratched at her chest, her claws drawing small furrows in the skin, blood welling up almost immediately.

"Did he do this to you?" she whispered.

"Yes," she rasped, "He made me grovel in front of Master Yuld." It was entirely true, just not exactly the way it seemed. "After awhile," she coughed, "he starts to make sense. That's the worst part."

"Did you really surrender without a fight?"

‘Were you really that weak?’

The thought was clear in her mind.

"Yes, at first," she said, trying not to smile at the little flash of contempt, "Later I tried to fight back, but it's pointless when you have the undivided attention of a Sith Lord for two weeks."

It was even all true, she liked using the truth to cause pain. She had knelt in meditation to avoid conflict at first, then she'd fought for her life and been beaten into submission.

"This," she curled in tighter, "it was one of the first things he did to me. Be glad you aren't human, I don't think he'd want your body."

No, he wouldn't. Humans and their bizarre constant mating heat was a mystery to Urla, who could only relate to the sensible system of periodic estrus that marked her own species' reproduction. By use of the Force she bypassed that annoyance altogether.

By the same token, she had previously been unable to emotionally connect to the concept of physical violation. She grasped the horror on an intellectual level, but the feeling was utterly foreign.

Them Ullan had answered the thought in her mind, proving that he could enter her innermost self at a whim.  
A low growl rose in her throat.

She whimpered as though she were in pain again, then let a soft moan whisper through the air. "

This," she said, "Is what he does next. Pain, he likes pain. He does things to you, to make you like it. He hurt me over and over, until I begged him to stop." She looked up at Urla who radiated discomfort and that contempt that was becoming ever present, "Until I begged him to hurt me more," she said this in the flat toneless voice she'd chosen to represent her mental bondage. She sat up and stroked fingers over the collar,

"He's making more of these. That's what he needed slaves for, to begin to manufacture them on an industrial scale."

::That part I hadn't planned to reveal. We don't actually share our plans for galactic domination with our prisoners, you idiot!:

He sent a small flare of pain to Iocina's temple. ::I'll edit that part out of her puny brain before we release her.::

"We have to," Urla started, then groaned in despair. "We can't do anything here."

She screamed, clutching her head. Once again I act before thinking, someday I'll break from that too if it doesn't kill me first.

"There are no more choices now," she whispered, "This is all we have. Forever. Maybe it would be easier to just," Iocina trailed off, "No I can't think that way.” It was all so very theatrical, she was overdoing it to a ridiculous extent but Urla didn’t seem to notice. 

Urla's anguish was reaching a tipping point, but Iocina wasn't certain if she could be the one to give her a last push or let Ullan have the privilege.

::Weakling Jedi. I'm almost tempted to keep this one. What do you think? She could be a weapon...::

::It depends on how she falls, she may still try to suicide if we aren't careful, but she's more likely to try and kill you. What would you like me to try next? Quivering silence, or making her watch as you finally break me utterly and I swear my undying allegiance to you?::

::Let's go with quivering silence for now. I'm going to start altering her mind. I know just what I want from her.::

A vision flashed into Iocina's mind of the chasm and the caves, and a ragged creature haunting them, only coming up to feast on terrified slaves.

"Iocina?"Urla whispered, "We have to be strong." She had to say it, but she wasn't sure if it would help. Iocina had curled up with her head resting on her knees. She seemed to no longer care if her body was covered.

Iocina clenched the muscles in her arms and legs, eventually causing them to quiver and shake. She let her hair fall to cover her face. Urla whispered something else, this time sounding angry again.

Time passed in hunger and the pain of lingering wounds. Urla could not restrain the shivers that came with the miserable cold for long, her body twitching and fangs chattering.

::Always assault them from every available front. Control their environment completely and take every semblance of peace from them,:: Ullan instructed.

In that vein, horrible discordant noise piped in, recognizable to the cultured, masochistic ear as the finest in Bith opera.

Iocina winced at the sound, ::Now that's not even fair.::

Urla covered her ear slits and moaned, with everything else added to this it was too much for her senses to take. Her scales felt brittle and she sorely felt the lack of her clothing. She wasn't as vulnerable nude as the hairless and scaleless races of the universe. Her secondary sex characteristics were minimal and invisible outside of estrus. The cold however seeped into every delicate part of her, and she shivered to keep her blood flowing. Reptiles could not cry, but she wished for some other way to release her pain and anger apart from screaming. The bloody furrows on her chest and thighs that she'd inflicted on herself in impotent rage burned, and her arm was one solid throbbing anguish like she'd never known...

Eventually he came and sat in front of them, making no comment on their plight. Bronus brought him an expansive meal, which he began to eat with gusto, while Alianne crouched at his side, giggling at the Trandoshan's pitiful plight, and begged for scraps. 

Urla turned her back, knowing he could sense the hunger clenching her stomach. She couldn't stand the thought of watching him eat, seeing the pleasure on his face of reminding her of her hunger. The red haired human beside him disturbed her. She too was stripped naked, but seemed to feel no shame. Urla could hear her making lewd and malicious comments about both she and Iocina. She was enjoying their misery as much as Ullan. Was she another Padawan gone missing, but presumed dead? There was no one seeking her it seemed. The woman who'd brought the meal appeared to have been a slave a long time. Urla had seen professional courtesans before and she moved and behaved like they did.

She looked at Iocina from the corner of her eyes, the girl was staring at the Sith in naked fear and longing. How long had Iocina gone without food? Master Vandar had indicated she'd been viciously beaten for stealing food in one of the recordings Ullan had sent. Oh that recording, how long would it take for the Council to watch her kneeling before the Sith? Would they even bother sending a rescue party, thinking she too had already turned?

He left the plate unfinished, shoving it across the floor where Bronus collected it. He wiped his mouth daintily and considered the pair. "I will allow one of you to eat. The one that pleases me the most will eat, the other will suffer."

::Wait to see how she reacts. I want her to have her first moment of selfishness soon, when she decides you aren't worth suffering for.::

Iocina just whimpered and stared, tracking Bronus with her eyes as though wanting what was left on the plate. She was hungry, yes, but she'd gone longer without food. She'd gone an entire week with intense training and physical labor and survived on scant rations.

Urla bristled, half turning to glare at him. Hunger was a beast that clawed her insides. She ground her teeth and finally spoke after several minutes of rising anger, "How exactly would either of us please you?" she asked, then quickly added, "Master?" The word burned on her tongue, although she shivered with cold. Was this how Iocina had felt?

The cages dropped. "First you will come out here and abase yourselves like the miserable animals you are."

Iocina properly crawled out of the cage and lowered herself into the submissive bow. Urla stepped out, still unwilling to give up so much. She found herself somewhat disgusted by Iocina's willingness to grovel, and felt ashamed of herself. Iocina had been a captive more than a month, and she had been a kind and sensitive person. Urla was stronger of body and of will. If she had to feign acceptance of her place in order to obtain nourishment then so be it. One of them had to be strong to have a chance to escape. She could carry the small human away if she needed to.

Painfully she knelt, holding her wounded arm against her chest, and lowered herself down. Her body wasn't made to curl into a ball like a humans.

"I find your lack of enthusiasm disappointing," he told Urla. "And neither of you are telling me how worthless you are. I don't think either of you have been suitably motivated."

Iocina contrived to sound particularly weak, feeding into Urla's contemplation of Iocina's inferior will compared to her strength.

"Please," she said barely above a whisper, her voice was ragged and nearly gone entirely. It wasn't an affectation that she couldn't raise her voice. "Master, I mean, my Lord, allow you worthless slave to have some food? This," she flinched, "This unworthy slave begs you."

Urla lowered her head to hide her contempt, Was this what R'l'nch meant when he said Iocina was lost? Not to the darkness, but broken beyond repair?

I won't end up like that, even if I have to pretend to do this.

She hissed quietly, then murmured, "Please my Lord Ullan, as you say I'm a pathetic and useless Jedi. I beg you to allow me to eat, that I may show you my strength and prove myself worthy." She was proud that her voice did not waver, it at least sounded sincere. This Sith appreciated power, much more than the servility the little human showed, and it was a possibly dangerous calculation to discover which this Sith preferred.

He nudged her head with his boot. "And what will you do with the strength if I give it to you? Try to escape?"

She stiffened, "No," she lied, "Master."

"Because if you did escape, I would execute a thousand slaves in reprisal. No, the only path from here is to kill me. Do you still think you could do that, slave?"

Despair shot through the anger, and fear. Iocina shivered, this time a true reaction but not one Urla would recognize. Yet. "I," her voice shook, "no, I cannot defeat you. Master," defeat was added to the symphony of pain, jangling against the awful music.

He gestured and flipped Iocina onto her back. "Sit on her chest and take your meal, slave."

Iocina yelped, gasping as if the movement hurt. Which it did, wonderfully.

Urla let out another shaking breath, Can I do this? she thought. Iocina lay there, accepting. Had she done this, against one of the slaves? No, there was no way Iocina would have had the strength to do what was necessary. This was why Iocina was lost, broken, weak.

She did it, crawled across the floor and very carefully adjusted her weight as she shifted herself onto the girl's chest. The human never even made a sound of protest, another flicker of contempt. She could feel her breathing, just barely enough.

::Master, if I'd been like this from the beginning you'd have gotten a lot more accomplished,:: she sent, ::but I can't lie, I love the way you broke me.::

::And I enjoyed every minute of carving your weak little soul up and making it into something better.::

"Bronus," he called.

Bronus brought forth a bowl of meaty stew and no utensils and one hand. It would be difficult to eat with one hand and a forked tongue, and as Urla got into it, she dripped bits of juice down into Iocina. Every scrap was precious, and it was not enough to properly nourish, but it took the edge of her hunger off.

"Please me and I may give you things," he said. "Though a slave is owed nothing. Displease me and suffer. The equation is simple."

::Try to get a piece for yourself, but be slow about it so I can make a scene.::

All Iocina could manage without revealing her unblocked state was to lick a small drop of liquid from one corner of her mouth. It was such a tiny amount that any punishment would be particularly unfair.

"Do not," he bit out one syllable at a time "let another slave take the food I give you without consequence."

Urla hissed plaintively. "What do you want me to do?"

"Punish that worthless scrap of flesh!" he snapped.

Force, she thought, Forgive me.

In a moment Iocina was left clutching the side of her face, the small cut Ullar had inflicted in his preparatory beating had opened and begun to bleed again. Surreptitiously she squeezed the wound and made the bleeding worse, allowing it to spill between her fingers.

Urla made horrified sound in the back of her throat and looked at the blood on her hand.

"Messy," he said, an approving note in his voice despite the seeming disapproval of the words. He grasped her claw with the Force, pushing it back up toward her mouth. "Clean it off, animal."

The Trandoshan was not entirely loathe to do this, although she'd been raised as a Jedi she still had the drives of any of her people. She licked the blood, the metallic taste of human blood on her tongue. She closed her eyes, and her hand twitched. I hate this, I do.

::To think she was like this all that time. She thinks she's going to get out of this, I did too at the beginning. Are you going to keep her or unleash her on someone else?:: Iocina was fascinated. It wasn’t merely that her master was an expert at this, which he undoubtedly was, but that she’d never thought of Urla as anything but a civilized sentient being. She didn’t doubt she was intelligent, but didn’t doubt now that some part of her brain was still a little too close to her evolutionary origin.

::I'm going to make her my monster in the pit.::

"Yes," he whispered. "This is what you could've been, if you hadn't been held back by the weakness of the Jedi. A hunter. A predator. A dominator of the weak. Look down at that little slave and tell me truthfully that you do not resent her weakness."

Urla shook her head, denial shuddering through her. How can I detest weakness when I am so weak? she thought, but it was plain on her face the contempt she felt.

"Iocina, if you weren't so weak you'd have stayed safely in the temple when Hivvis brought you back," she said. Iocina wasn't able to force tears this time but made one of the little helpless sounds that had driven Truli to aggression. "You'd never have a collar around your throat."

"And because of her weakness, your friend died and you ended up here," he said. "Because your teachers let such weak things through the trials, and made your friend weak, and made you weak. But you don't have to stay weak. I can make you strong. I can give you true power. Unlimited power."

::Trandoshans are obligate carnivores who prefer their meat fresh. Killing is in their nature. Soon I will let her kill. I will teach her to hate weakness, and so will you.::

::How long shall I stay your weak slave after she's yours? As you said, betrayal would hurt her much.::

She'd been here for hours, perhaps longer depending on how long she'd been unconscious. Undoubtedly the high council had already seen the message. Had seen her abasing herself at the feet of a Sith. There was no going back now, it was a surprisingly easy choice. It shouldn't have been, she should be leaping forward and trying to rip out his throat.

Beneath her Iocina made another pathetic mew of pain.

"Yes," she said, "my Master," she bowed her head slightly.

::Damn! If I actually cared to have apprentices other than ones I can sexually abuse, apparently there's a ripe crop. That or I really am this good. Which, of course, I am.::

"Then bow and offer me your life, slave. You won't be anything until you prove yourself to me..."

Urla levered herself off of the human with her one hand, the girl coughed and rolled into her side facing away from them. She pressed herself to the floor.

"Master, I give myself to you. I beg you to make me strong."

::Am I to 'die' now? You did say only one of us would live.::

Iocina couldn't stop a tiny amount of actual fear from her mind voice. She didn't think he would really kill her, they were having too much fun, but he'd told her to never try and guess his actions or motivations.

::Let me think about it for a minute...::

He dropped to one knee over Urla's head, pressed his hand against the back of it. "You come from a warrior species. You were meant to hunt and kill. Tell me that is not true. Feel it in your heart."

Even as he spoke, he was subtly stoking those very instincts in her mind, sliding in, making small adjustments here and there. She was a predator, and he began to bring that to the fore. Moreover, he also was instilling a recognition of the greater predator in the room- himself.

Urla went very still, the cold un-movement of a predator stalking prey while knowing they are competing against a more powerful predator for the meal. A wave of dizziness made her ill for a brief moment, what? she relaxed completely. She felt whole, complete in a way she'd never felt in her life.

He grasped her head crest and lifted her face, his eyes inches from hers, so close to those terrible canines, his soft flesh so easily rent. There was no fear in his face, just supreme confidence. "Never forget, I broke you once and I can break you again any time I feel like it. But against any I unleash you on, you will be my terror. Parents will scare children at the mention of your name. You will hunt for me. You will kill for me."

With that, he backhanded her with his metal arm, knocking her onto her back as he rose up and stepped forward, putting his boot on her chest and driving her to the floor. In Iocina's mind, she could sense him tapping the flow of emotions from Urla, becoming a feral beast himself, reveling in the thrill of her growing bloodlust.

Urla growled, a low deep sound rumbling from her chest and up through her mouth. She began to tense, preparing to struggle, then submitted. She knew better than to challenge the hunt leader.

"Yes, my Master."

Iocina made another soft sound, covering her impulsive laugh with a moan of pain.

"I'm better than you," he said. "Stronger, faster, and smarter. And a lot more cunning. Get up, Worm. Show her what you are."

::Now we make the circle complete.::

Iocina rolled onto her back and released the laughter straining in her chest. She slowly got to her feet as Urla turned her head from where she lay under her, their, Master's heel.

She contemplated her bloody hand and ran her tongue up along the length of one finger as she strode over to the pair. She turned her face up to Ullan's with her blood smeared mouth and smiled.

"I like this game, my Master."

Urla regarded her through slitted eyes, torn between despair, hatred, and admiration.

They had played her, brilliantly. They had, in a short time, broken her from the Code she had devoted her entire life to.She had never felt more free.And yet, she had never felt more broken.

All these feelings collapsed into a black ball of hatred for Iocina, settling on the easiest conclusion.

::If, some day, you overcome her, he whispered in Urla's mind, even as he blocked it away from Iocina, then you can take her place at my feet. Kill her, or better yet, break her into your slave. Some day, you may well have the chance.::

He released his weight from Urla's chest and stepped back. "Back into your cage until I call upon you. Meditate and plan your hunts. Think about death."

A vice of the Force closed on her stump, sending a searing pain shooting up her arm. "Feel that. Revel in it. Know the strength that pain gives us, and the weakness it gives our enemies, and be ready when your time comes."

Urla did not scream, she took the lesson to heart and breathed through the pain. She crawled back to the cage and sat, cross legged on the floor of it.

"Nurture the hatred that you feel," he whispered as the glowing light came back up. "But remember, you can only unleash on the targets I give you and no others."

Iocina heard his mocking laughter in her mind, ::I wouldn't turn my back on that one, were I you. You have an enemy for as long as either of you stays alive.::

He kissed her, in front of Urla, his intensity flowing through her body, making her limbs weak. Urla's hatred flowed through the room, almost tangible in its nature.

She leaned into the kiss, flicking her eyes to meet Urla's. The former Jedi's eyes were full of hate. 

::I don't even turn my back on Alianne, Master. Just because she isn't Force sensitive doesn't mean she can't manage to knife me if my guard is down. When Urla' power returns she doesn't even need to be armed, she's always armed.::

He touched a metal finger to her collar and it bonded together, locking in place. He used that to fold her down so that she was at his side, then turned and began to walk, towing her along in awkward position.

You haven't killed a Jedi, but together, we did something better than that. We broke a Jedi's soul and created a monster. I do believe it's time...

He nodded to Alianne. "Bring me Zyro and Bronus and join us in my quarters."

"At once, master," she said, her eyes flickering down to Iocina uncertainly. As always, it was impossible to tell if the apprentice was in trouble, or being rewarded.

Sensing the thought, Iocina had to agree.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> * A short one this time, really it should have gotten tacked onto the end of the last chapter oops.

Chapter 4

She stumbled down the corridor walking nearly folded in half. In Ullan's quarters she noticed the shackles were still welded into the floor, and reminded herself that at some point she wanted Alianne to end up in them.

Zyro edged into the room and knelt on Iocina's side, and two more pairs of feet padded through the door onto the thin black carpet.

Ullan sat on the bed and gestured toward his boots. "My apprentice has assisted in the destruction of a Jedi tonight," he said. A flick of his finger broke the bond with her collar, his other hand came forward to brush her cheek gently. "Bronus, get her cleaned up. She's filthy and I won't have her like this the first time that I take her."

He smiled down at Zyro. "And you as well, little slave." He beckoned her to his feet, guiding her down to the position of full submission.

Bronus touched Iocina's arm. "Mistress Worm?"

"Her name is Iocina," he said. "And she will be addressed as such from now on."

"Mistress Iocina," Bronus said. Iocina felt something flicker from the older slave. Pride? Recognition? Respect? Whatever the emotion was, it was positive.

Iocina rose from her bent position and allowed Bronus to take her arm. The pale slave tugged her into the 'fresher and began adjusting the water.

She felt dazed, and realized she couldn't be certain if she'd be allowed any kind of release. This could be more intense frustration than what she'd been experiencing for weeks, but she felt... She wasn't sure how to feel. Honored? Proud? She was proud of herself, she had destroyed her old friend in a way that she would never recover from. It was better than slaughtering her, because the pain of betrayal would last forever.

Bronus kissed at her neck as she cleaned her, lathering the soap generously about her body, the warm water so delightful as it played across her skin.

"Our master is giving you the greatest honor," she said. "You've impressed him, Mistress."

Iocina rested her forehead against the wall, the hot spray beating down on her bruises and scrapes. "I'm glad," she said, "I can't believe it took me so long to know who I am, who I could be." She turned and raised her arms to have her sides scrubbed.

"Did you think I could do it?"

"I try not to think about these things, Mistress. That is his place, and now yours. For a slave, thinking creates discontent and disappointment. Better to react as needed and simply be what your master wants."

As she worked, she massaged Iocina's muscles with strong, confident hands, avoiding opening wounds, but not shying away from the bruises. It felt magical.

"Very true," Iocina murmured. She stepped fully into the water to rinse off the soap. She smelled like her master, like rich temple incense. She was silent as Bronus dried her, working from her hair down to her feet. Kneeling between her legs Bronus pressed a soft kiss to her stomach. Iocina petted her hair and walked into the room.

She didn't try to hide her emotions, fear and apprehension, lust and the well of desparate need that she didn't think would ever truly be filled no matter how deep into bliss she could go.

He was reclining on his bed, wearing nothing more than a a soft robe. Alianne and Zyro were at his feet, kissing and stroking each other, the former being unusually gentle. 

“Come here, apprentice.”

He sat up and beckoned.

“Kneel at my feet. These words aren't for anyone else.”

She crossed the few short steps to the bed and knelt, pressing her face to the floor. Her body was trembling in anticipation, and the air brushing her exposed sex was cold as liquid slid down the insides of her thighs.

“My Master?”

::You allowed me to break you and you allowed me to remake you. You've thrown yourself at my teachings with fervor. You are still fragile, weak, and only slightly skilled, at least by my standards. But you are ready to outmatch many Jedi that you meet, if not in direct combat then in cunning. Tonight, you helped me break a Jedi. And for that, you are worthy of being used for my physical pleasures.::

He gestured for Alianne to bring Zyro to him.

"You," he told Zyro as Alianne pressed her head to the floor "have earned nothing. I was just saving you to make this night a little more eventful. You're good for little more than being a receptacle for a greater being's pleasures, and tonight you will be used for exactly that."

::Thank you Master, I can only swear to you that I will strive to meet your expectations,:: she waited, kneeling beside the slave. Zyro wasn't trembling this time, and Iocina wasn't sure if she'd accepted her fate entirely now or if she was entirely too terrified to react.

She wanted to say that she hoped she didn't disappoint him now, as in this she was entirely ignorant. A biology class hadn't explained any of the physical sensations she'd experienced this far, particularly as it had been aimed at young beings who never intended to use the instructions.

 

He sensed her unvoiced hope and smirked, “Oh, even if you're clumsy and useless, I can still make something out of you.”

Suddenly he snatched her hair, lifting her up. A punch to the stomach doubled her over, and he threw her face down on the bed.

A similar flurry of violence deposited Zyro next to her.

“Kiss her,” he ordered, “Use her body.”

“Iocina hastily obeyed, roughly turning the older woman over and straddling her hips. Zyro looked up at her, there was fear sliding behind her eyes and Iocina smiled. It wasn't the half-gentle smile she'd been favoring the woman with, it was the wicked sadistic grin she'd only shown to Bronus and Alianne. She pressed her mouth to the slave's and felt her sigh. She'd seen in her mind all the lovers she'd had, all women, and she knew how to kiss well.

She raised her head and stroked the slave's cheek softly, then struck her. The complete shock on Zyro's face was beautiful, and Iocina struck her again. Some small semblance of what little survival instinct she had left made Zyro try to struggle. "Ah, no pet. We don't do that, you should know better."

But something in Zyro had snapped at that moment of betrayal, and she flailed ineffectually while crying out, her eyes crazed with fear. The culmination of all the abuse she'd taken up to this point from the others on the ship, all leading to this moment where the one voice she trusted even slightly was using her as ruthlessly as the rest.

“The slave is rebelling. We can't have that,” Iocina chuckled and used the force to stretch the woman's arms above her head, and to spread her legs. "I won't be offended if you scream," she said, then ran her nails down the woman's unprotected sides. She could feel every rib as she drew a small amount of blood.

When Zyro screamed she kissed her again, smothering the sound. She ran her fingers along one scratch, then showed the smears of blood to the slave.

"Open your mouth," she ordered.

Zyro shook her head, then seemed to think better of it and complied, "That's better." Iocina slipped her bloody fingers in her mouth, "Clean them off, if you bite me you'll regret it for weeks."

Iocina felt his hands upon her body, touching and stroking, moving her forward slightly before plunging into Zyro's body. He was looking through Iocina's eyes, but touching both their minds to Zyro's as he entered her.

The slave's eyes went blank with shock as she cried out. They could sense the bite of pain in her, and the overwhelming sense of violation mixed with fear and betrayal. Iocina dug her nails into Zyro's shoulders, the hands on her own body leaving trails of delicious heat on her skin.

Unlike Bronus he didn't avoid her cuts and scrapes and she whimpered and writhed against Zyro as pain/pleasure began to build in her.

“You only get this about one time per. Soon enough she'll be completely broken and we'll need a new toy. Fortunately it's a big galaxy,” he said as he pulled out of Zyro and hoisted Iocina to her knees. His hand curled in her hair. “

Are you ready? I wouldn't want this to be a sur-”

He suddenly thrust himself into her.

Iocina gave a somewhat undignified yelp as unexpected pain lanced through her. He didn't wait for her to get accustomed, but she hadn't expected he would. This pain, more than any other save the moment when Ullan had instructed her to heal herself using the dark side, immediately fed into pleasure as he moved on top of her. She didn't know how to move with his rhythm, so she let him move her. His hand in her hair forced her head back, exposing the length of her throat and the tight freezing metal around her neck burned with cold.

He began feeding her slight mental nudges, adjusting her posture and rhythm. Then he gave her another nudge and her hands clasped unconsciously around Zyro's throat.

Zyro's panic began to overwhelm her. Her Mistress Worm, now Iocina, had been so kind to her. She'd hurt her, yes, even violated her, but she'd begun to think of her as a protector. As long as she was in the young woman's favor she'd truly felt she could survive this. She knew she'd been manipulated, she had the memories of friends and family but couldn't remember their names or faces. Only the feelings remained. This was the power of the Sith, and this was the corruption.

As Iocina's hands moved slowly around her throat Zyro's terror reached a crescendo. Equally slowly the fingers closed, and began to cut off her air.

“Have you ever tasted anything so sweet?” He murmured into Iocina’s ear.

He slipped further into Zyro's mind, seizing control, forcing her to buck her hips and squeeze her own breasts, harshly and painfully, in a grotesque parody of sexual ecstasy.

Behind them Alianne's lust flared like a bright star, as she straddled Bronus, forcing the older woman to serve her.

Iocin rocked her hips back, spreading her own legs further to take him in as deeply as he could go. The chasm in her soul, where all her need flowed to no purpose, ached as she reached the point where her own ecstasy became frustrated agony and she nearly wept with her desire.

And then, like a star in its death throes attempting to fuse iron, he allowed her explosion, driving the force of it into every other mind on the ship. All of them, human and Trandoshan alike, felt her hunger finally meet the all-too-brief release. The mere humans were overwhelmed, writhing helplessly as she imprinted herself on their souls.

The alien, on the other hand, burned in sullen, spiteful hatred, resenting every moment.

The cries that spilled from her mouth were nothing like the false screams she'd given to madden Uthar. She sobbed the emptiness abating as she fell into throes of pleasure like she'd never experiences. Any sexual release she'd had before this was like a red dwarf against a supernova. She ground herself back against him all her weight falling on the slave beneath her.

She could dimly recognize the moans of the three slaves, in pale reflection of her own they shuddered in the aftershocks of her emotions being forced upon them. Even the horrified Zyro sobbed with it, head thrown back as she bucked beneath the two Sith.

He shoved her aside and thrust himself back into Zyro, giving her no respite, still going strong. He guided her own hands up to her throat to resume the choking, forcing her to torment herself.

Iocina chuckled and pressed her mouth against the slave's, drinking down the tiny gasps of air. She could sense her weakening and slid into her mind, weaving an image of the first lover she'd had and forcing her to see that girl's face on the Sith.

He augmented the illusion, adding the woman's voice, speaking sweet words even as they brutalized her. Then the illusion twisted, the same woman's face, but cold and spiteful, hurling horrid words of hate down at Zyro.

He slowed down, thrusting deliberately, savoring the moment.

“I think we broke it Master," Iocina said as the woman went submissively limp, hands dropping to either side of her face. Tears streamed unheeded down her temples and into her sweat soaked hair.

She reached the edge again, hovering in a perfect place of pain as Zyro stared up at the ceiling unblinking.

He took a finger and pushed Zyro's face left and right, gauging her lack of response or resistance. Then he leaned down and spat once on her face. "Weak and useless," he said. "You'll never be good again."

He shifted around and used his feet to shove Zyro off the bed. She rolled bonelessly and hit the floor with a loud thump. He grabbed Iocina's hair to pull her head into his lap. "Slow and gentle," he ordered as he snapped his fingers for Bronus to join them.

Iocina was happy to serve, lowering her head through haze of blinding need. Having him in her mouth was nearly as pleasing as between her legs and she settled into a rhythm of licking and sucking she couldn't quite remember how she'd learned

Bronus joined her, kissing at her neck and licking at his testicles. He sat back with a contented sigh and gestured to Alianne, herself in the throes of ecstasy from witnessing Zyro's final break. The vicious slave crawled forward, her hands curling in Zyro's hair.

“My little savages.”

She opened her throat to take him to the hilt, moaning around his length.

Alianne straddled Zyro, in just the same fashion as Iocina had done when she'd revealed herself as more than ordinary slave. She ground herself against the little doctor's sex, bringing herself to a state of perfect bliss. Her masters had destroyed this weakest slave and she indulged in reflected cruelty. Iocina hummed with amusement as the redhead began imagine her Master's apprentice in the figure beneath her.

Yes, Iocina thought, happy little savages.

The evening passed in lazy carnal pleasure, the fire giving way to sensual exploration of the different combinations that could be found between the five of them. He gave Iocina free run to bring herself to fullness time and again as he sampled the pleasures of each woman, drifting between lazy pleasure and idle cruelties. Teeth and tongue, twisting hands, pinching fingers, slashing nails, all got their turn.

Finally as Alianne rode Zyro about the floor like a pack animal, flogging her backside with a belt used to spur the broken slave onward, he finally returned himself to Iocina's mouth, releasing himself at last, staring down into her eyes as he did.

Her eyes were wide as her tongue slipped out to catch a drop in the corner of her mouth. She felt oddly different, as though one final weight had been released from her shoulders. Like a cold wind had swept through her mind and left behind it clarity of purpose.

He rose up to sit on the edge of the bed, gesturing for her to join him.

"Attend us, slaves."

Even as they rose up, she felt him slam the gate back down on her release, locking her back in the familiar prison of denied desire.

"Attend us, slaves."

The three slaves clustered at their feet, pressing respectful kisses to them, while he chuckled, “Just imagine what you'll have to do to earn the next one.”

She smiled faintly, “Command me, Master. Point me at your enemies, I'll destroy them in whatever way you desire.”

“Oh, I will. Assuming they don't destroy you.”

He lifted his foot and pressed Zyro's head into the floor. “Remember, there is only one place for weakness here.”

“Yes”, she agreed, then lay back on the bed smiling.

He jostled Zyro's head with his foot, “What do you see when you look at this pathetic scrap?”

“Nothing,” Iocina mused, “she's nothing. She exists as an empty slate, particularly now. She no longer remembers her past, forcing her to see her first love torturing her broke that piece of her. She has no future, unless she is given one. You could remake her completely, give her a new personality. I assume that is what was done to Revan, but likely he was given a weak and compliant one that won't even think of going against the Council or the Code.”

She sat up and stared at the top of the slave's head, “She's literally Zero.”

“Ah, but that's considerably more than nothing. That's full of potential. Don't look at creature like this and see merely what it is, see what it can be. We destroyed the old creature like burning wood to make a fire. But now the ashes can fertilize something new and different.”

He turned toward her, his weight leaning down on Zyro's head, which she now bore without a hint of complaint. 

“When the Jedi look at us, they see destruction. And because the Sith have always arisen after long periods of stagnation, that is a great deal of what we bring. But destruction purges the weak to make room for new, stronger creations.”

“Such as a controlled fire, burning away the dead mast and weak or rotting trees?” she asked.

“Precisely. Take Uthar. She would have been a total waste as a Jedi, forever torn between that simpering code and her true, feral nature. She had to be broken in order to be the best she can be. If course with Zyro it was simply for our amusement, but pursuit of pleasure is perfectly reasonable when done by the strong.”

“The day you took me you said I'd never make it as a Jedi, that I'd never even have been knighted. How did you see into me so clearly, when I had no idea myself?” she asked, it was something she'd wondered since she'd first begun to feel the first stirrings of pleasure in pain - her own and others. “I was always the first to reach out to help other people, to put them first. The thought of that now, well, it disgusts me.”

“There were a few reasons I said that. First, I'd listened to Rens mewl about you on more than one occasion, especially after he found out that you'd been claimed as a padawan by Vrook. So I knew that you didn't fit their strictures. Further, I knew that if Vrook took you on, it was entirely with the intention of finding you wanting so he could deny you knighthood. And finally, I said it because I wanted to demoralize you and make you feel small, weak, and pathetic so that I could beat you down and make you lick my boots.”

He shrugged, “At that point, I honestly had no idea if you'd ever be good for anything more than that. Or that you would be so good at it.”

He glanced over at his boots, sitting neatly paired on the floor, gleaming black.

“We should get you a pair now. Anyway, there's another secret there: caregivers almost always end up hating those they care for and protect, as a mass. It's simply a matter of unlocking those resentments. After all, why should you have to be so strong and make it possible for them to be weak and useless?”

She nodded, “That was the thought process I was gearing towards. Do you know the moment I realized I couldn't go back? It wasn't when Hivvis rescued me, or when I was lying helpless in the medical wing strapped to a bed and secretly resenting it. It wasn't even when I asked you to break me.”

She shifted, surprised that the memory made her uncomfortable, “It was when we were about to assault Plozin's little stronghold, and I said 'don't die'.”

“That was rather strange”, he agreed. Unbidden, a flash of the confusion and discomfort the words had engendered came back to him, an emotion he quickly tamped down.

"Anyway," he said as he rose to his feet, weight down on Zyro's head in order to stand up fully. He stood there for a moment, savoring her complete broken submission. "It's yours now. Make something interesting out of it. I do have a project for it, so I'll need it to retain its medical skills. Otherwise, impress me."

"I might need to think about it awhile, I don't want to rush into anything, if you don't mind?* she ran a finger over her bottom lip, looking down at the woman, "Perhaps you could give me a hint as to what project needs done, so I don't inadvertently render her less than capable of fulfilling it to your specifications?"

"Take your time," he said.

An image flashed into her mind, a prosthetic arm. Not anywhere near the scope, ambition, or sophistication of his arm, but a deadly weapon nonetheless, and infused with elements of the metal that made up both her collar and his arm.

"It is raw canvas," he said. "Right now, you could literally make it do anything. Which can be amusing for a little while, but ultimately gets boring."

"You have the perfect unobtrusive servant in Bronus, your little sadistic 'poison queen' whatever the hells that's going to mean, your bloodthirsty pet in the cargo hold. What about a doctor that enjoys inflicting pain as much as she once sought to alleviate it? Anytime she healed one of us she wanted to cry at not being able to take our pain, and leaving scars was just anathema. The next time we have guests we could have our own little torturer to assist us. She could keep them alive longer if you only needed to interrogate someone, and heal them after torture while inflicting just as much pain if you want to keep them around."

She smiled, "It didn't work out with Uthar, but I still dearly want to send a Jedi home crying to see what they'll do about it. An easy solution to that is set up somewhere off the ship where it would be less difficult to arrange an escape scenario.

He nodded. "We were just a little too successful with Uthar, but part of the problem there was that she was a mewling weakling fresh from being a padawan. We also need someone older, more experienced. Someone who would also be a greater loss. We'll keep our eyes open."

He nudged Zyro over onto her back. She rolled easily, her eyes staring straight up at the ceiling, her face slack and expressionless.

"All that for an old lover," he said with a shake of his head. "I've half a mind to go back and find the lover and break her as well, but that's one that sounds better in theory than it'd work out in practice."

"This might take a few hours," she said, "And if my head feels the same as it did the first time I might be semi-useless for a while afterward," she said, "Are there any duties you need me to perform before I get started?" She hesitated a moment, "And may I eat first? It has been nearly a day. I can go longer of course, but I'd rather not."

"Have the slaves bring you food."

He nudged Zyro again, then planted a foot on her breast. "Take your time. I want to see if you can bring this out of it without the Force. Craft it slowly and carefully into a monster, and remember, we're going to be spending some time on our new colony getting things set up. There will be plenty of potential specimens there for it to experiment on."

He ground down with his foot, eliciting a squeal of pain. "Ah, it can still hurt, then."

"Mmmhmm," she purred, "I may need to manipulate its mind enough to get it walking and talking again," she sighed, "then I'll see what I can do."

Alianne was sitting crouched in a corner radiating satisfaction, her eyes locked on Zyro's recumbent form. Iocina poked her in the temple, "Get over it, its still mine and you can't play with it unless I say you can. Now get up and get me food."

The slave seemed reluctant, but jumped to her feet and started to run as Iocina raised the back of her hand. "Good girl," she muttered absently, following her to the galley.

Afterward she used the Force to roughly settle Zyro onto the medical bay table and considered whether to strap her down. She decided it might be a better idea, her idea might cause her to begin seizing. This wasn't like manipulating drives the woman already had, she needed to create one that was the exact opposite to what the woman naturally desired. She only wanted to implant a few impulses, the doctor would need to be manipulated without the Force to fully blossom into a cheerful little sadist.

Iocina floated a chair over and sat behind Zyro's head, placing her fingers lightly on the woman's temples. She brought to the surface enough of her personality to care for herself and follow orders, all of her personal memories were shattered, but the intellectual ones were completely intact. She had to smooth away the great deal of empathy the woman embodied, which she could see would have made it nigh impossible to break through natural means. It was very possible that merely taking away her ability to empathize would push her towards sadism, but she still carefully built up some of the erotic sensations that Iocina felt when receiving and inflicting pain. More inflicting than receiving for the little doctor.

We're going to have fun, you and I, little Zero. When you wake, I'll even let you learn your new state by working on me.

When she was through, both she and the slave were covered in a sheen of sweat. She was glad that she hadn't bothered to dress. Her head felt like it was about to explode, and she barely managed to stumble into the sonic shower to quickly clean herself before falling into her own bed with instructions for Bronus to wake her in a few hours, or if Zero woke up. Whichever came first.


End file.
